26 February - The Khojaly massacre of Azerbaijani civilians

 

The Khojaly massacre was the mass killing of Azerbaijani civilians by Armenian forces and the 366th CIS regiment in the town of Khojaly on 26 February 1992.The event became the largest single massacre throughout the entire Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Khojaly was an Azerbaijani-populated town of some 6,300 people in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of Azerbaijan SSR, also housing the region's only airport in 1992.The town was subject to daily shelling and total blockade by Armenian forces during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. Without supply of electricity, gas, or water, it was defended by the local forces consisting of about 160 lightly armed men. The Armenian forces, along with some troops of the 366th CIS regiment, launched an offensive in early 1992, forcing almost the entire Azerbaijani population of the enclave to flee, and committing "unconscionable acts of violence against civilians" as they fled.

On the night of 26 February 1992, the Armenian forces seized the town, taking prisoner or killing the civilians remaining in it. At the same time, several large groups of Azerbaijani civilians, along with some self-defense forces in some of them, were trying to escape the town and move towards the Azerbaijani-controlled territories. However, Armenian forces fired upon the fleeing Azerbaijani refugees, resulting in hundreds of deaths.

The massacre was one of the turning points during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The death toll given by the Azerbaijani authorities is 613 civilians, including 106 women and 63 children.According to Human Rights Watch, at least 200 Azerbaijanis were killed during the massacre, though as many as 500–1,000 may have died