Shelling from Armenia Kills One Civilian in Azerbaijani Village
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Armenian forces killed at least one, injured eight civilians in the Azerbaijani Agdam district on the line of contact in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, an Azerbaijani official said Thursday.
According to head of the district executive power Ragub Mammadov, the victim, Famil Mustafayev, was a resident of the Chemenli village of Agdam district, who was injured in the shelling by Armenian forces.
He was taken to the hospital, where he died, Sputnik News reported.
Earlier in the day, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Armenia violated the ceasefire deal on the frontline in Nagorno-Karabakh 117 times in the past 24 hours, while the Azerbaijani forces retaliated with 121 artillery strikes.
On April 2, tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani breakaway region with a predominantly Armenian population, escalated. Baku and Yerevan accused each other of provoking the hostilities, however, the sides succeeded in reaching a ceasefire agreement on April 5, which has been followed by near-daily reports of truce violations.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been engaged in a dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh since 1988, when the autonomous region left the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic and proclaimed independence after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The secession triggered a war that lasted until a Russia-brokered ceasefire was signed in 1994.
