BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) – As Azerbaijan regains control of land it lost to Armenian forces a quarter-century ago, civilians who fled the fighting decades ago wonder if they can go back home now – and if there’s still a home to go back to.
An estimated 600,000 Azerbaijanis were displaced in the 1990s war that left the Nagorno-Karabakh region under the control of ethnic Armenian separatists and large adjacent territories in Armenia’s hands. During six weeks of renewed fighting this fall that ended Nov. 10, Azerbaijan took back parts of Nagorno-Karabakh itself and sizeable swaths of the outlying areas.
More territory is being returned as part of the ceasefire agreement that stopped the latest fighting. But as Azerbaijani forces discovered when the first area, Aghdam, was turned over on Friday, much of the recovered land is uninhabitable. The city of Aghdam, where 50,000 people once lived, is now a shattered ruin.
Adil Sharifov, 62, who left his hometown in 1992 during the first war and lives in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, knows he will find similar devastation if he returns to the city of Jabrayil, which he longs to do.
Jabrayil is one of the outlying areas regained by Azerbaijani troops before the recent fighting ended. Soon after it was taken, one of Sharifov’s cousins went there and told him the city was destroyed, including the large house with an orchard where Sharifov’s family once lived.