By Anatol Lieven, who comes under fire while flying to investigate the mass killings of refugees by Armenian troops

As we swooped low over the snow-covered hills of Nagorno-Karabagh we saw the scattered corpses. Apparently, the refugees had been shot down as they ran. An Azerbaijani film of the places we flew over, shown to journalists afterwards, showed dozens of corpses lying in various parts of the hills. The Azerbaijanis claim that as many as 1000 have died in a mass killing of Azerbaijanis fleeing from the town of Khodjaly, seized by Armenians last week. A further 4,000 are believed to be wounded, frozen to death or missing. Armenia has denied these claims.

Seven of us squatted in the cabin of an Azerbaijani M24 attack helicopter as we flew to investigate the claims of the mass killings. Suddenly there was a thump against the underside of the aircraft, a red flash of tracer ripped past the starboard wing, and the helicopter rocked sharply. We swung round, and there was a deafening burst of fire from the cannon under our wing as the helicopter crew returned fire. We had been fired on from an Armenian anti-aircraft post. We swung round again, tipped to starboard and appeared to dive straight down into a valley. The brown earth swooped around our heads, the helicopter swung round again and followed the contours of the ground. Our cannon fired repeated blasts.

Later it emerged that a civilian helicopter that we had been escorting had landed successfully at Nakhichevanik in the east of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

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The civilian helicopter’s job was to land in the mountains and pick up bodies at sites of the mass killings.

The civilian helicopter picked up four corpses, and it was during this and a previous mission that an Azerbaijani cameraman filmed the several dozen bodies on the hillsides.

Back at the airfield in Aghdam, we took a look at the bodies the civilian helicopter had picked up. Two old men and small girl were covered with blood, their limbs contorted by the cold and rigor mortis. They had been shot.

Publication date 03/02/1992

Courtesy of Karabagh Truths platform