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The Armenian community in the US held a protestin New Yorkin front of the building of the Azerbaijan permanent mission to the UN. The protesters were holding flags of Armenia and the Nagorno Karabakh Republic in their hands, as well as posters criticizing the official Baku’s policy of lie and falsifications.
The representatives of the Armenian community demanded that the Aliyev regime recognize the Sumgaitpogroms of Armenians in1988, as well as the Bakupogroms of1990.

In addition, the protesters demanded Azerbaijan to stop the dissemination of misleading information about 1992 Aghdam events and to put an end to theaggression towards Armenia and the NKR.
It is worth mentioning that the Azerbaijani side, in its turn, tried to hold an illegal rally outside the building of the permanent mission of Armenia to the UN, but the participants of the protest were dispersed by the police for the absence of permission and because another place was assigned beforehand for holding the campaign.

On 26-29 February 1988 in terms of actual complicity of local authorities and inaction of the USSR government mass pogroms of civilians were organized in Sumgait city of Azerbaijani SSR, accompanied by unprecedented brutal murders, violence and pillaging against the Armenian population of the city. Armenian pogroms in Sumgait were carefully organized. At the meetings, which began on February 26 in the central square, city leaders openly called for violence against the Armenians.
On February 27 protests which were attended by hundreds of rioters turned into violence. Armed with axes, knives, specially sharpened rebar, rocks and cans of gasoline and with the pre-compiled lists of apartments where Armenians lived the rioters broke into the houses, turning everything upside down there and killing the owners. At the same time, people were often taken out to the streets or to the courtyard for jeering at them publicly. After painful humiliations and torture the victims were doused with gasoline and burnt alive. On February 29 army troops entered Sumgait but without an order to intervene. Only in the evening, when the mad crowd began to attack the soldiers the military units took up decisive steps.

The exact number of victims of Sumgait pogroms is still unknown. According to official data, 32 people were killed; however there is ample evidence that several hundred Armenians have been killed in the city in three days. There is also evidence that the riots were coordinated by KGB in Azerbaijan. Executioners of Sumgait were subsequently declared as national heroes of Azerbaijan.