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On April 10, 1992 the Azerbaijani special purpose police unit (SPPU) set Karabakh village Maragha on fire and exterminated its population.

Up to 100 people were massacred during the tragic events in the village.

"49 people were taken as hostage, including 9 children, 18 women, three aged people, one of them blind. The fate of 19 hostages remains unknown until now," human rights organization Human Rights Watch report (September 1992) reads.

According to Svetlana Poghosyan, who was born in 1939, on April 9, at the evening, in 1992 the shelling began. On the next day the village was attacked.

"I hid myself in a hole, and ran to Magadis village in the evening. Then I returned to Maragha again where everything was burnt. 53 people have been murdered brutally. One of the women was axed to death and burnt so that I recognized that it was Varya just by her clothes. Her husband was killed not far from her; they had killed also their daughter and her mother-in-law. Her two grandchildren were taken as hostages. They were later exchanged," notes Svetlana Poghosyan.

She tells that she was looking for her daughter, and then learned that she, Karine Poghosyan, was taken hostage together with two children – two-year old Narek and suckling Lele.

Aghajanian Nushik, who was born in 1932, notes that the Azerbaijanis killed many innocent people in Maragha on this day; among them were aged people, women and children. There were also Rosa Barseghyan - 70 years old, Zhora Stepanyan - 70 years old, they cut Boric’s throat, dismembered Edik Badalian and Zaria by an ax into pieces, killed Parandzem, Evald, Serzhik, Bagrat, Vardanush, Vanya Maroutyan, his wife Raya, they doused Alyosha Hovsepian with gasoline and burnt him.

Larisa Badalyan, who was born in 1953, recalls that on April 10 she was in a potato field. She went to the village just after learning about the attack. Maragha was on fire. She approached her uncle’s house. Her fifty-year-old uncle was lying dead.
House of hundred-year-old granny Anush living next-door was filled with blood. Corpses of women and elderly people were lying on the floor with their eyes open.

Karine Poghosyan, who was born in 1962, was taken hostage on April 10. She recalls that the first attacks began in late January. On February 26 the village was attacked, and they left it. On April 9, when it seemed that everything was peaceful in Maragha, they returned home.

"We had hardly entered the house, when the fire started. We hid in the pit. In the morning the fire started again. There were 12 people hiding in the pit. In day time, at about 3-4 o'clock, we saw Azerbaijanis in the village. We heard gunshots and screams. I heard a woman entreating not to touch the children. She was hit on the head with a pistol. We were forced to get out of the pit. Later I learned that this woman, Zabel, was run down by a tank," recalls Karine.

She notes that she has seen many beheaded, maimed corpses, burnt houses in Maragha.

"All those who were taken hostage were beaten. I was beaten on the first day in such a way that my whole body and head hurt; I could not even comb my hair. While beating, Armenians were being humiliated and abused. They were saying that all the Armenians should be destroyed, and I was replying that we are spread all over the world and they cannot kill them all. Each who entered used to beat," says Karine.

Zhenia Ghazarian, who was born in 1935, was also taken hostage on April 10, 1992.

"They rushed into my house and shot me by gun (she was wounded in the leg). I was hit by gun, I fell down. Then they threw me into a car, where they had gathered the loot. Besides me my brother-in-law, Yura Ghazaryan and his wife Anush Ghazaryan, was in the car," Zhenia Ghazarian notes.

Video footage, posted on Youtube, depicting a wild orgy in Maragha taken place on April 10, 1992, unveils the true face of the Azerbaijani army, celebrating its "victory" over the unprotected old men, women and children.