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Ten residents of Nagorno Karabakh Republic said they intend to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against Azerbaijan regarding their forcible displacement. The lawyers of the Ombudsman’s Office of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic will help to file the lawsuits, the Ombudsman Yuri Hayrapetyan said, according to the news portal Caucasian Knot. NKR has ratified the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, and its citizens have the right to appeal to the ECHR, the Ministry of Justice says.

“I could not help responding to the letter of the refugees from Sumgait, Baku and other districts of Azerbaijan. The lawyers of the Ombudsman’s Office are ready to consult and address the authors of the letters so that they are able to competently pursue their goal,” Hayrapeyan said.

A group of forcibly displaced people from Azerbaijan currently living in Artsakh (NKR) sent a letter to the President, the Parliament, the Spokesperson for the Parliament, the Prime Minister and the Ombudsman of the NKR in late June asking to support their intention to appeal to the ECHR against Azerbaijan.

“The first place, where we, the Armenians, suffered human and property losses, was Sumgait. We are aware of cases of refugees living in Armenia filing lawsuits at the European Court, but what happens is that each of them appealed for concretely their case. Besides, our living in the unrecognized Nagorno Karabakh Republic cannot serve as an excuse to reject us,” the letter reads. The authors note that their “claims are not about the protection of the state’s rights, but rather about the protection of the human rights which are to be respected no matter where they live, even if it is an unrecognized republic.”

According to the letter, they had to leave their homes “to save their lives, children’s lives.” ”And if we, as the Azerbaijani side claims, are not refugees because we moved from one of its territories to another, this changes nothing, as our moving was forcible. We became the victims of a conflict between the regime and the citizens of one and the same republic, as Sumgait, Baku and Kirovabad had nothing to do with Artsakh people’s wish for self-determination,” the authors of the letter noted.

NKR Justice Minister Ararat Danielyan says NKR residents have the right to appeal to the ECHR. “Artsakh residents have the opportunity to appeal to the ECHR because we have adopted the law about the ‘Ratification of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms’,” Danielyan said.

A refugee from Azerbaijan, pensioner Evgenia Stepanyan told Caucasian Knot that her family fled Azerbaijan as the Karabakh conflict began, fearing for their lives. “We did not manage to take anything with us. We started living in Nagorno Karabakh from scratch and still have many social problems, and most importantly, the housing issue. If Azerbaijan reimburses my and my family’s damage, many problems will be certainly solved,” Stepanyan says.

Earlier, the Prosecutor General of Armenia, Gevorg Kostanyan, said that for the case “Sargsyan vs Azerbaijan”, the ECHR held that Azerbaijan is responsible for violating the Armenian refugees’ rights. By recognizing the fact of violation, it gave the sides a year to decide on the compensation sum. Kosyantan stressed the importance of the discussion of the displaced people’s rights for the first time within a legal framework, which gives a ground to other people in similar situation have the instruments to defend their rights in the ECHR.