The video was widely shared after the attacks by the Azerbaijani army in Armenia on September 13 and 14. It shows soldiers in Azerbaijani uniforms shooting at least seven Armenian prisoners of war at close range. Human Rights Watch reviewed the 40-second footage and released its findings in a report on Friday, October 14. The video "shows Azerbaijani forces executing Armenian prisoners of war," said the NGO, denouncing "a war crime for which there needs to be accountability." According to the NGO, the events took place on September 13 in the mountains near Lake Sev.
A few days earlier, another video showed an Armenian army volunteer, Anush Abetyan, 36, also captured by Azerbaijani soldiers during the latest clashes in mid-September, the deadliest since the end of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh in the autumn of 2020, with nearly 300 deaths on both sides. Her body is naked, mutilated, with a cut-off finger in her mouth. We can hear the comments in Azeri of the soldiers surrounding the corpse: "Look at that, you did well, she has nice breasts, eh?" one says, before hitting her in the chest.
During the 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, videos of Armenian soldiers being insulted, tortured or mutilated were widespread, spreading terror in Armenia. The Office of the Human Rights Defender in Armenia has counted nearly 300 such videos emerging from the Azerbaijani side. Its services were aware of three videos showing abuses committed by Armenian soldiers. Several families of Armenian victims had reported receiving videos of their loved ones being tortured. The new images released in recent weeks have the same objective, "to intimidate Armenian society and inflict further suffering on it, while receiving praise and encouragement from Azerbaijani social network users," said rights defender Kristine Grigoryan in a report published in September.
Preoccupied by the war in Ukraine, the international community has shown little reaction following the release of these videos. On October 4, France expressed its "solidarity with the Armenian people" and called for an "impartial and independent investigation." The day before, European Commission spokesperson Peter Stano had also declared that this video "should be investigated by the Azerbaijani authorities."
The trauma of Gurgen Margaryan's death
Azerbaijan claims that it has launched an investigation. But the fact that Europe is asking Baku itself to conduct the investigation raises questions. "We cannot allow Azerbaijan to investigate its own war crimes, that is shocking," says MEP Nathalie Loiseau, chair of the European Parliament's Subcommittee on Security and Defense. "We did not ask Russia to investigate the crimes committed by the Russians in Bucha, we sent EU investigators! We should do the same with Armenia and Azerbaijan."
You have 60.1% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.