ISTANBUL

Azerbaijan has discovered a new mass grave site in the city of Shusha in the Karabakh region, local media reported on Tuesday.

According to state news agency Azertac, the remains of 17 people were uncovered in the territory of Shusha prison during excavations conducted between Aug. 1-15 by Azerbaijan’s State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons.

Hikmet Hajiyev, an Azerbaijani presidential aide, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Armenia continued to refuse providing information about the location of mass graves to “evade responsibilities.”

In June, Azertac reported the discovery of a mass grave in the Saricali village of Agdam district, where the remains of four people were found.

The Karabakh region has been the site of mass killings and burials since the First Karabakh War in the early 1990s, during which the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh – a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions, including Agdam.​​​​​​​

In the fall of 2020 in 44 days of fighting, Azerbaijan liberated several cities, villages and settlements from Armenian occupation. The Russian-brokered peace agreement is celebrated as a triumph in Azerbaijan.