CDSI: since start of 2016, at least 24 servicemen perished in Southern Caucasus

Today, the Caspian Defence Studies Institute (CDSI) has promulgated its statistics on human losses of the defence and security units of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Georgia since the start of 2016 and up to March 25, as Jasur Sumerinli, one of the founders of the CDSI, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. According to his story, the monitoring was conducted on the basis of media reports and messages of the Ministries of Defence (MoDs) of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and Georgia. The CDSI does not exclude that the real death toll in the armed forces may be higher, Mr Sumerinli has stressed.

During this period, the losses of the Azeri armed forces made eight people; and only four of them were killed in the skirmishes on the border; the remaining four are the so-called "non-combat losses".

The monitoring of mass media and reports of the MoDs of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh has revealed the death of 14 soldiers. Four of them died as a result of ceasefire violations in the Karabakh conflict zone. Non-combat losses made 10 persons.

Least losses were recorded in the armed forces of Georgia, said Sumerinli. Since the start of 2016, two soldiers have died in the Georgian army: a soldier and an officer in the rank of a major. The reasons were reported as the H1N1 virus (swine flu) and an accident.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.