Armenia grapples with refugees arriving from Nagorno-Karabakh • FRANCE 24 English

An ethnic Armenian exodus has nearly emptied Nagorno-Karabakh of residents since Azerbaijan attacked and ordered the breakaway region’s militants to disarm, the Armenian government said Saturday. FRANCE 24’s Catherine Norris-Trent reports from Goris, Armenia.

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The Exodus of ethnic Armenians from nagorno-karaba is dwindling to a trickle now people who are arriving say that most of those who’d been living in nagono caraba in that mountainous Enclave have now left those who wish to leave only very few remaining were told and here in goris which had been a major

Humanitarian Hub well things have quieted down quite considerably there was a registration Center where people arriving from the gono caraba sign up for help but in previous days there had been crowds and crowds of people filling up this square but they are now being relodged in hotels in empty Apartments

Lodging with family or acquaintances elsewhere in Armenia and the roads of Armenia are full of these trucks and cars we’ve been seeing packed high with belongings with the rest of people’s lives as they try and find where to go to set up and rebuild their lives

There’s a lot of grief and despair among people here but we’ve we’ve seen now the vast majority of ethnic Armenians having left we’re watching as we talk to you some of the footage of people is the amount of people in around goris leaving from camera back as well by that one road on

The legend corridor what about the people who are going and coming your way and talking about what they’ve left behind because to try and step back from this imagine a whole region just disappearing emptying itself out lives turned upside down presumably businesses abandoned Farmers leaving cattle behind what are you hearing

Well from the people we’ve been speaking to there’s a huge sense of loss Farmers who’ve lost the land that they’d been farming for Generations people leaving homes where they’d been living for decades the most painful though among people we speak is leaving behind the graves of deceased relatives who’d lived

And died in nagorno caraba and that is something that you know brings people to tears quite frequently when they say that they all took out photographs of relatives that was very important for them to keep those memories but they’ve Left Behind the buried remains of loved ones and that’s something which is

Extremely painful for a lot of these ethnic Armenians people telling us that some of them that they hope Beyond hope that they maybe will be able to return but others with a feeling of Despair that this really is the end of an era and they’ll never be able to go back to

This land which some of them say is kind of holy for them their Holy Land the land of their ancestors and with just such deep attachment to it now it is inside the internationally recognized borders of azerbaijanber for the people who’ve left it they they just feel such

A deep attachment to this and the things that they’ve Left Behind when you see the belongings piled onto the trucks and cars you know there’s chairs tables bicycles um blankets and things like that but there are some things which people and memories which people just haven’t been able to bring with them