Maraga massacre

The Maraga massacre (Armenian: Մարաղայի կոտորած, romanized: Maraghayi kotorats) was the mass murder of Armenian civilians in the village of Maraga (Maragha) by Azerbaijani troops, which had captured the village on April 10, 1992, in the course of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The villagers, including men, women, children and elderly, were killed indiscriminately and deliberately, their houses were pillaged and burnt; the village was destroyed. Amnesty International reports that over 100 women, children and elderly were tortured and killed and a further 53 were taken hostage, 19 of whom were never returned.

The village of Maraga (Leninavan) was located in the Martakert region of Nagorno Karabakh, just across the border from the Azerbaijani town of Tartar (also known as Terter and Mir-Bashir) and was one of the region's largest villages. According to the census of 1989 the village had a population of 4660, predominantly ethnic Armenians including a few Armenian families who escaped pogroms but were forcefully deported from Sumgait, Baku, and other areas of Soviet Azerbaijan.

By spring 1992 the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh escalated. Azerbaijan tightened the blockade which it had imposed on Nagorno-Karabakh for about two years, at the same time employing policy of ethnic cleansing and military assaults against the Armenians in Karabakh. The bordering villages of Karabakh were systematically raided and shelled by Azerbaijani armed forces. The event was described as an act of revenge after the Khojaly massacre.

On April 10, 1992 Maraga was attacked by the Azerbaijani forces. Early in the morning artillery fire started, followed by a ground assault from neighboring Mir-Bashir. By the afternoon, Azerbaijan's regular army forces entered the village with tanks, followed by infantry, and followed by looters. By that time according to the data of Human Rights Watch the village had 500 residents. As the result of the attack most of the village was burnt and destroyed, 57 residents of the village were killed, 45 civilians were taken hostages including men, women and children.

A preliminary investigation was carried out by Human Rights Watch (HRW, Helsinki Watch) and published in 1992. Having spoken to the only eyewitness available to them at the time, an Armenian fighter who took part in the village's defense, the report outlined that Maraga's defense detachments were unable to hold their positions when units of the Azerbaijani army attacked the village on April 10: they retreated to a spot overlooking the village and called for help. According to Armenian fighters, the Azerbaijanis had about 20 armored vehicles, and the lack of adequate weaponry on the Armenian side made it impossible for them to repel the attack. The defending units notified the villagers of their retreat and most of the inhabitants left the village, while the civilians who remained, mainly consisting of the elderly and the disabled, hid in basements and underground shelters.

Two weeks later the Azerbaijani forces launched another attack on the village. 13 civilians were taken hostage, and the remaining population was then forcibly deported. The whole village was then razed to the ground.

The Azerbaijani army captured Maraga the same day (April 10) and massacred the civilian population. The village was retaken by the Armenians the next day. The Armenian fighters reported finding the bodies of 43 civilians, most of whom were mutilated.

The massacre was marked by extreme acts of cruelty and slaughter. Azerbaijani soldiers sawed off the heads of 45 villagers, burnt others, took 100 women and children away as hostages, looted and set fire to all the homes, and left with all the pickings from the looting. According to eyewitness accounts people were decapitated, tortured (such as being dragged tied to a tank or being burnt alive), bodies were mutilated, dissected and burnt; non-combatants, among them men, women and children, were captured and taken hostage.