Azernews.Az

By Ayya Lmahamad

Armenia, which has been occupying Azerbaijani territories for 30 years, commits large-scale environmental terrorist acts on these territories, causing serious damage to the environment, biodiversity, forests, underground and terrestrial natural resources.

The remark was made by the Deputy Head of the Biodiversity Protection Service of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources Arzu Samadova.

She underlined that in recent days Armenian armed forces has again fired on the civilian population of Azerbaijan living far away from the conflict zone, damaging environment, natural resources, biodiversity in the region and rich forests of global importance.

“As a result of regular artillery shelling of areas outside the conflict zone by Armenian armed forces, which is a gross violation of international humanitarian law, several missiles hit specially protected areas, including Aghgol and Goygol national parks, causing widespread fires. Continuing the ecological terror, Armenia used phosphorus weapons in the vicinities of Shusha city, because of which valuable trees burned down in the forest,” she stated.

Moreover, she emphasized that as a result of these terrorist acts, serious environmental consequences were inflicted in the region. Thus, the top layer of soil, which has been forming for thousand of years, was completely burnt down, rare and endangered species of plants and animals included in the Red List of Azerbaijan and the International Red List have been destroyed as well. She stressed that the habitats of animals were destroyed, the ecosystem was disturbed and components of environment were seriously damaged.

“These grave crimes committed by Armenia against ecology and natural resources are a gross violation of the requirements of existing international conventions on biodiversity, Ramsar and Bern conventions in the field of the environment,” she added.

The Biodiversity Protection Service called on the convention secretariats to put an end to the acts of environmental terrorism carried out by the occupying state of Armenia in the Azerbaijani territories, and to inform the international community about the crimes committed by the illegal regime in the occupied Azerbaijani territories.

Armenian armed forces launched a large-scale operation in the front-line zone on September 27 at 6 am, shelling the positions of the Azerbaijani army from large-calibre weapons, mortars, and artillery installations of various calibres. Armenia has been targeting Azerbaijan’s densely populated areas and infrastructure projects.

Starting from September 27, Armenia launched a missile attacks on Azerbaijani cities and regions - Ganja, Barda, Mingachevir, Khizi, Absheron, Tartar, Gabala, Kurdamir, Siyazan, Goranboy, Aghdam among others. In addition, Armenia targeted Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Novorossiysk pipelines and Oghuz- Gabala-Baku water pipeline. Additionally, a lot of historical monuments had been seriously damaged or destroyed in a result of Armenian military aggression.

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Ayya Lmahamad is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @AyyaLmahamad

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