Residents of Krasny Bazar in Karabakh alarmed by resumed shelling

After four months of calmness, shelling of the Karabakh village of Krasny Bazar resumed; the house of a local resident was damaged, the villagers have reported. The international community should pay attention to Azerbaijan's actions, Gegam Stepanyan, the Ombudsperson of Nagorno-Karabakh, has stated.

On Thursday (July 28), the Armenian Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced shelling of its positions on the Azeri border' and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Nagorno-Karabakh reported the shelling of the border villages of Tagavard and Krasny Bazar. The Azerbaijani MoD refuted this information.

Earlier, this February, Krasny Bazar villagers stopped taking their children to kindergarten because of shelling (Krasny Bazar is called Karmir Shuka in Armenian, and Gyrmyzy Bazar in Azerbaijani, – note of the "Caucasian Knot"). Shelling keeps people in constant fear, and livestock is stolen from households, villagers said on February 21.

"Azerbaijan's actions are aimed at disrupting the normal life of Karabakh communities and intimidating the civilian population," Mr Stepanyan has claimed on the Facebook*.

Marta Mesropyan, a resident of the Red Bazaar, said that she was "bathing her child when the shelling began."

"When it turned into intensive, I grabbed the child and hid in a secluded place in the house," the woman has added. According to her story, "from April to this day, everything was calm."

Vigen Shakhnazaryan, the owner of the damaged house, has noted that "only by happy chance, none of the children suffered."