Azerbaijan says two civilians killed by Armenian shelling

World

Published: 2017-07-05 13:09

Last Updated: 2024-03-27 21:26


Photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Armenian forces have killed a two-year-old Azerbaijani girl and her grandmother in a fresh border clash near the breakaway Nagorno Karabakh region, Baku said Wednesday.

Ex-Soviet Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a decades-long conflict over the disputed region, and frequent exchanges of fire nearly spiralled back into all-out war a year ago.

The toddler and her grandmother were killed Tuesday "as a result of a targeted and deliberate attack on civilians" in the village of Alkhanli "by the armed forces of Armenia" using mortars and heavy grenade launchers, Azerbaijan's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Karabakh's rebel authorities said they opened fire in response to Azerbaijan shelling their positions.

"Azerbaijanis deploy their positions in populated areas, using civilians as a human shield," a Karabakh defence ministry statement said.

Baku and Yerevan have feuded over the Nagorno Karabakh region since Armenian separatists seized the territory in a war that claimed some 30,000 lives in the early 1990s and ended in a fragile 1994 truce.

The two sides never signed a firm peace deal.

Energy-rich Azerbaijan, whose military spending exceeds Armenia's entire state budget, has repeatedly threatened to take back the breakaway region by force.

But Moscow-allied Armenia has vowed to crush any military offensive.