BAKU -- Azerbaijan has filed a lawsuit against Armenia with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), accusing Yerevan of human rights violations during its almost 30-year occupation of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven adjacent districts, and during the 44-day conflict over the disputed region in 2020.
A member of Azerbaijan's parliamentary committee on legislation policies, Kamal Cafarov, said on February 8 that Baku also accused Yerevan of not undertaking measures to find out the fates of some 3,800 Azerbaijani nationals who went missing during the initial war over the breakaway region in the 1990s.
In addition, in its lawsuit Azerbaijan raised the issue of Armenia's alleged use of ballistic missiles, white phosphorus munitions, and cluster munitions during shelling of Azerbaijani towns and villages located far from the conflict zone last year.
According to Baku, such shelling resulted in the deaths of 93 civilians, including 12 children and 28 women, while 423 civilians were injured and 264 apartment blocks and 9,294 private houses were destroyed.
Nagorno-Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan, but its territory and seven Azerbaijani districts surrounding it were controlled until early November 2020 by ethnic Armenian forces from the early 1990s.
The two sides have skirmished regularly over the years, but In September, Azerbaijan launched a military offensive that resulted in Baku regaining control of the surrounding districts, and parts of Nagorno-Karabakh itself.
The sides agreed to a Russia-brokered cease-fire on November 10, resulting in in the deployment of 2,000 Russian peacekeeping forces to the conflict zone.
Yerevan has not officially commented on the European Court case.
