The forgotten war of Nagorno Karabakh

  • Dates
    2017 - Ongoing
  • Author
  • Location Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan

“All men and women of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic are part of the army, but we can not say how many soldiers are now operative over the frontline” explains an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Stepanakert.

Soldiers are engaged in defending their positions over the frontline, although in May 1994 an official ceasefire was also signed by Armenia and negotiations are taking place in Moscow. The ceasefire is regularly broken with casualties on both sides.

The conflict started in 1988 and escalated into full-scale war when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Armenians went to war with Azerbaijan, with backing from Armenia. The conflict left 65,000 ethnic Armenians and 40,000 ethnic Azeris displaced.

Clashes between the Azerbaijani and ethnic Armenian forces over the breakaway enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh last year were the worst violence the region has seen since the ethnic war over the territory ended in 1994. Azerbaijan boasted of “destroying” 170 opposing troops, while sources from the Armenian Karabakhi forces estimated they had killed 300 Azeri soldiers.

In the village of Talish, Azeri forces entered the houses killing four old-men and they brutally cut off their ears. Traces of those raids are still visible walking through bombed-out houses, shops and a destroyed school. Locals were transferred to near villages, where they found relatives.

The border territory is now full of military camps and bases. In the capital Stepanakert a military academy substituted the traditional high-school. Male and female teenagers aged 13-18 are learning maths, history and english after physical exercises and marches.

That forgotten war seems to be still not finished today.

© Mattia Vacca - Young soldiers observe the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.
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Young soldiers observe the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

© Mattia Vacca - Young cadets rest in the dorms of the military high-school in Stepanakert.
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Young cadets rest in the dorms of the military high-school in Stepanakert.

© Mattia Vacca - Image from the The forgotten war of Nagorno Karabakh photography project
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Young soldiers commemorates the victims of the Armenian Genocide the night before the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day is officially observed.

© Mattia Vacca - A tank destroyed in the 1993 conflict near the northern border of Nagorno-Karabakh. Two soldiers were killed in this attack.
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A tank destroyed in the 1993 conflict near the northern border of Nagorno-Karabakh. Two soldiers were killed in this attack.

© Mattia Vacca - Young soldiers iron their military uniform in the military high-school in Stepanakert.
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Young soldiers iron their military uniform in the military high-school in Stepanakert.

© Mattia Vacca - Young soldiers engaged over the frontline in the Armenia-backed separatist region of eastern Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.
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Young soldiers engaged over the frontline in the Armenia-backed separatist region of eastern Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

© Mattia Vacca - Image from the The forgotten war of Nagorno Karabakh photography project
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A bombed-out house in the village of Talish, located next to the border with Azerbaijan. Azeri soldiers entered the village during the April War in 2016, killed four old men and they brutally cut off their ears. The village is now unhabited.

© Mattia Vacca - Young soldiers play in the Hadrut region just a few miles from the border with Iran.
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Young soldiers play in the Hadrut region just a few miles from the border with Iran.

© Mattia Vacca - Image from the The forgotten war of Nagorno Karabakh photography project
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Young cadets attend lesson in the military high-school in Stepanakert. Last year, clashes in a decades-old conflict between Azerbaijani and ethnic Armenian forces in the Caucasus region motivated a number of young women and girls to pick up arms.

© Mattia Vacca - Image from the The forgotten war of Nagorno Karabakh photography project
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A bombed-out elementary school in the village of Talish, located next to the border with Azerbaijan. Azeri soldiers entered the village during the April War in 2016, killed four old men and they brutally cut off their ears. The village is now unhabited.

© Mattia Vacca - Young cadets attend geography lesson in the military high-school in Stepanakert.
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Young cadets attend geography lesson in the military high-school in Stepanakert.

© Mattia Vacca - Young cadets attend physical lesson in the military high-school in Stepanakert.
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Young cadets attend physical lesson in the military high-school in Stepanakert.

© Mattia Vacca - The politicians of the Nagorno-Karabakh government observe the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.
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The politicians of the Nagorno-Karabakh government observe the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

© Mattia Vacca - The mountains at the border between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.
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The mountains at the border between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.

© Mattia Vacca - Young soldiers engaged over the frontline in the Armenia-backed separatist region of eastern Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.
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Young soldiers engaged over the frontline in the Armenia-backed separatist region of eastern Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

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