Fuel explosion death toll leaps to 68 as Armenians filled up to flee

Moscow: The death toll from an explosion and fire at a fuel depot in Nagorno-Karabakh has risen to 68, with a further 105 people missing and nearly 300 injured, the office of Karabakh’s ombudsman said on Tuesday.

The blast occurred as thousands of ethnic Armenians fled the breakaway enclave after their fighters were defeated by Azerbaijan in a lightning military operation. The authorities have not given any explanation of the cause of the blast.

Smoke rising after a fuel depot explosion near Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh.Credit: Siranush Sargsyan

Earlier, several media outlets cited the Armenian health minister as saying the death toll from Monday’s incident had risen to 125.

Some outlets later edited their posts, saying that was the number of people killed in Karabakh during last week’s Azerbaijani military operation and then transported to Armenia.

The office of Karabakh’s ombudsman, Gegham Stepanyan, gave its toll and the number of missing later on Wednesday (AEST).

It said on social media the number of injured had reached 290, 168 of whom were taken to medical institutions in Armenia on Tuesday: 96 by helicopters from Armenia and belonging to Russian peacekeepers, and 72 patients by ambulances accompanied by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

A convoy of cars of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh fleeing their homes.Credit: AP

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that the explosion had resulted in hundreds of burn victims. The ICRC said that it was delivering medical assistance to those suffering from burns and evacuating some people by ambulance, citing full hospitals and traffic as challenges.

As of 2am on Wednesday, at least 28,120 of the 120,000 ethnic Armenians who call Nagorno-Karabakh home had already crossed into Armenia, the Armenian government said.

Azerbaijan has no intention of taking military action to create a land corridor in southern Armenia, the foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijan’s president said on Tuesday.

Azerbaijan’s military operation last week to take control of the ethnic Armenian-dominated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh has stoked Armenian fears that Baku may now use force to create a corridor through Armenia to Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave.

An Ethnic Armenian man who was injured during an explosion at a crowded petrol station in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh.Credit: AP

But Hikmet Hajiyev, the foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, said Baku only wanted to create transport links to Nakhchivan through Armenia, which he said would benefit both countries and the wider region.

“Azerbaijan doesn’t have any military goals or objectives on the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia, that’s ... completely out of Azerbaijan’s agenda,” he said.

“Our suggestion to Armenia is about building connectivity lines, transport lines, in a very peaceful manner,” he said, speaking in Brussels after EU-hosted talks with his Armenian counterpart, Armen Grigoryan, and European officials.

Hajiyev’s comments came the day after Aliyev held talks with his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan at which he hinted at the prospect of creating such a land corridor, which would also give Azerbaijan a direct link to close ally Turkey.

An influential Telegram channel linked to Karabakh Armenians called “Re:public of Artsakh” said Aliyev’s words looked ominous.

“The new target of Azerbaijan and Turkey is Syunik (a province in southern Armenia through which such a corridor would pass). They are already openly declaring it. Active preparations for war are under way,” it said.

At the Brussels talks, officials discussed a possible meeting between Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at a European summit in Granada, Spain, on October 5.

The EU said in a statement after the talks that it “believes that the possible meeting in Granada should be used by both Yerevan and Baku to reiterate publicly their commitment to each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty”.

Reuters

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