A new website www.khojalywitness.org website has been launched in partnership with Leyla Aliyeva, initiator of the “Justice for Khojaly” international campaign, Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, and with the initiative of the famous photojournalist Reza Deghati.
Reza Deghati, was one of those, who witnessed the Khojaly genocide and the horrors the people of Azerbaijan endured in 1992. He hosted exhibitions and made reportages in many parts of the world to bring the realities to the world community.
The website features photos made in Khojaly and Aghdam in 1992, and articles written by influential media outlets such as “The Times”, “The New York Times”, “The Washington Times”, “The Washington Post”, “ВВС 1 News”, “The Independent”, “Le Monde”, “Newsweek”, “The Sunday Times”, “Human Rights Watch”, “The Age”, “The Boston Globe”, “Kommersant” and “Svoboda”.
The website is available in Azerbaijani, French, English and Russian languages, allowing the wider audience to learn about the realities of the Khojaly genocide.
On the night of February 26, 1992, the Armenian armed forces committed a deliberate act of massacre in Khojaly, a small town in Karabakh, Azerbaijan. During that night 613 people were killed including 106 women, 63 children, and 70 elderly people. Most of them especially the women and children were shot at close range, scalped, burnt alive, had their eyes gorged out, or were beheaded, and one pregnant woman was bayoneted in the abdomen. Those who escaped the gunfire with wounds had to trek through the mountains to safety and many perished in the -10 ° C.
A further 1 275 people were taken prisoner some of the prisoners were shot dead. Those who survived fled to the city of Aghdam, they went to the mosque which was being used as a morgue to search for their loved ones who had disappeared. Each day they wandered among the dozens of corpses wrapped in body bags brought to Aghdam by the Red Cross. As they examined their faces, they discovered the horrors perpetrated by the Armenian soldiers.