Children play in a schoolyard in Martuni, a city of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, January 2021.
Keystone / Christophe Petit Tesson
The Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday it had sent humanitarian convoys to the breakaway Karabakh region from Armenia and Azerbaijan simultaneously, re-opening the road link to Armenia blockaded since December.
“The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is today bringing shipments of wheat flour and essential medical items to people in need via the Lachin Corridor and the Aghdam road,” it said in a statement referring to the roads linking Karabakh to Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but has an overwhelmingly ethnic Armenian population which won de facto independence from Baku in the early 1990s after a lengthy war.
Azerbaijan has effectively blockaded Karabakh since December 2022, causing acute hunger in the region.
Azerbaijan and the Karabakh separatist administration agreed to simultaneously re-open the two roads earlier this month, with a single Russian aid truck entering Karabakh from Azerbaijan, in the first restoration of direct transport links since 1988.
The Lachin road, which connects Armenia and Karabakh, did not immediately re-open, with Armenian and French aid convoys continuing to idle at the beginning of the corridor.
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