Armenia’s Prime Minister Says 49 Soldiers Were Killed by Azerbaijan

Earlier in the day, Armenia had said that Azerbaijani forces were trying to advance onto its territory.

Fresh clashes have erupted over the longstanding Nagorno-Karabakh dispute since Sunday.

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

Armenia on Tuesday, 13 September, said that at least 49 of its troops were killed in clashes with its hostile neighbour to the east – Azerbaijan.

"For the moment, we have 49 (troops) killed and unfortunately it's not the final figure," Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told the parliament in the Armenian capital Yerevan, AFP reported.

Earlier in the day, Armenia had appealed to world leaders saying that Azerbaijani forces were trying to advance onto its territory. Azerbaijan's defence ministry, however, said that its forces were only responding to provocation.

While Azerbaijan acknowledged that some of its soldiers had died in the conflict, it did not release the exact figure.

The two nations have been hostile since the ethnic Armenian separatists in the Nagorno-Karabakh region first broke away from Azerbaijan when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Ever since, two wars have been fought and about 30,000 lives have been lost over the disputed region.

Most recently, conflict broke out in the region in the autumn of 2020. It lasted for over six weeks and claimed more than 6,500 lives before a ceasefire was brokered by Russia, which convinced Armenia to give up its territory.

(With inputs from AFP.)