Azerbaijan was a charnel house again last week: a place of mourning refugees and dozens of mangled corpses dragged to a makeshift morgue behind a mosque. They were men, women and children of Khojaly, an Azerbaijani village In the war-torn enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh overrun by Armenian forces on Feb. 25-26. Many were killed at close range while trying to flee; some had their faces mutilated, others were scalped. Azerbaijanis retaliated quickly, shooting down an Armenian helicopter with 40 people aboard. Troops of the former Soviet army were perhaps the last safeguard against civil war-and they were withdrawing from the region.

Publication date 03/16/1992

Courtesy of Karabagh Truths platform