Stranded Karabakh Armenians Flood Border Town As Blockade Continues

This December 29 photo shows ethnic Armenian locals from the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan queuing for breakfast in a hotel in Goris, southern Armenia, on the 18th day of being locked out of their hometowns.

People walk into the Hotel Goris. The Armenian town has become a base for many of the approximate 1,100 Karabakh locals who have been stranded since a blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh began on December 12, cutting off the flow of people and supplies, including medicines and food, from the breakaway region.

An Armenian checkpoint outside Tegh, a village near the entrance to Nagorno-Karabakh. 

A few kilometers farther from where this photo was taken on December 16, Azerbaijanis blocking the road have claimed to be protesting the activities of mines in Azerbaijani territory that are operated by ethnic Armenians. Many observers see the group as potentially state-backed actors intending to put pressure on Yerevan.

Igor Sazonov, an officer in the Russian peacekeeping force, leaves the Tegh checkpoint on December 26, after speaking with ethnic Armenian protesters demanding the reopening of the Lachin Corridor.

An ethnic Armenian policeman speaks to a driver at the Tegh checkpoint. Armenian authorities began preventing anyone except local villagers from proceeding past this post shortly after the blockade began on December 12.

 

Members of Asparez, a dance group from Stepanakert, light candles in a church in Goris. The teenagers were traveling with their teacher, Lari Avanesian (second from left), to compete in a dance contest in Tbilisi, when the road back to their homes was shut.

The Asparez dance group performs in Goris on December 25, nearly two weeks into the blockade.

Fifteen-year-old dancer Samantha Boghosian said the performance was held in part because "we are trying to show that everything is OK because the situation for children in [Nagorno-Karabakh] is much worse than ours." The teenager added, "By keeping ourselves strong, we aren’t creating extra worries for our families."

A Russian peacekeeping soldier stands next to a vehicle with a "Z" marking associated with support for the invasion of Ukraine.

Photographer Tom Videlo says many Karabakh locals see the ongoing inaction of Russian peacekeepers to clear the Lachin road as a calculated political move to exert pressure on Yerevan for Russia's own geopolitical goals.
 

Ruben Balian and his son Garnik in their house in Kornidzor, a village near the blockaded road connecting Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh.

Balian is a member of Armenia’s territorial defense organization and keeps an AK-47 rifle at home. Many fear another breakout of all-out war could be possible amid the ongoing tensions over Nagorno-Karabakh.

An Armenian soldier uses a listening device at a position near the Lachin blockade during a foggy day on December 21. At some points near the southeastern border, military outposts of Azerbaijan and Armenia are just meters apart.  


 

Gor, a local of Nagorno-Karabakh, has been stuck in southern Armenia with his father since the blockade began. 

On December 28, it was announced that operations of a major mine in the Nagorno-Karabakh region would be suspended until an environmental review could be completed. Environmental concerns around mineral extraction were one reason given for the Azerbaijani blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh.