10 December 2020, 11:22
Azerbaijan hands three POWs over to Armenia
The Azerbaijani authorities have returned to the Armenian party the civilians who were captured during the Karabakh conflict, Tigran Avinyan, the Armenian Deputy Prime Minister, has informed.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on December 5, it became known that Azerbaijan and Armenia had agreed on the exchange of POWs in the "all for all" format. A day earlier, the Armenian and Azerbaijani parties had exchanged lists of POWs.
Relatives' data and the videos circulated on the Internet testify about 60 soldiers and about 40 civilians held in Azerbaijani captivity, Artak Beglaryan, Ombudsperson of Nagorno-Karabakh, said on December 2. He also noted that the Armenian party is receiving more and more information about those in captivity, the real number of prisoners of war (POWs) is higher than Azerbaijan asserts.
The Azerbaijani party has returned three POWs to Armenia, says the message posted on the Facebook page by Tigran Avinyan, Armenian Vice-Premier on December 9, which was translated by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.
The Armenian Unified Information Centre has reported that all the three POWs are elderly people; they were sent home primarily for health reasons.
Together with them, the body of an elderly POW was handed over to the Armenian party; he died in Azerbaijan "under unknown circumstances," Artak Beglaryan, Ombudsperson of Nagorno-Karabakh, wrote in his Facebook page.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on December 10, 2020 at 05:22 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Author: Armine Martirosyan Source: CK correspondent