Nagorno-Karabakh: 'People are fainting queuing up for bread'

They call it the Road of Life, as it is the only route connecting 120,000 ethnic Armenians living in Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region with the Republic of Armenia.

But for nearly nine months the Lachin Corridor has been blocked by Azerbaijani authorities, resulting in severe shortages of food, medication, hygiene products and fuel in the breakaway region.

Eighteen-year old Hayk is standing on the balcony of a modest hotel in Goris on the Armenian side of the border with Azerbaijan, speaking to his mother on a video call.

"No eggs, no sugar, there are no sweets at all, bread is being rationed, got up at 04:00 the other day to stand in the queue," says his mother, speaking from the Karabakh town of Martakert.

Hayk is not his real name. I have changed it for his own safety.

Armenians are unable to reach their families on the other side of the Lachin Corridor because it has been blocked by Azerbaijan since December.

No independent media have been able to reach the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Photos and videos of empty shops have been circulating on social media.

"People are standing in queues for hours to get minimal food rations. People are fainting in the bread queues," local journalist Irina Hayrapetyan says in a recorded voice message from inside the ethnic Armenian enclave.

"We have no fuel for transport and people have to walk many kilometres by foot to stand in queues to buy whatever they can to feed their families."

Local authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh say one in three deaths is due to malnutrition.

"I know a case when a pregnant woman lost her child because there was no petrol to get her to hospital," says Hayk's mother.

She speaks of no gas since March, no fuel, no medication - not even shampoo - and regular power cuts. With winter coming it will get worse.

Her son feels hatred, fear and despair: "Because I understand sooner or later my home, my city, my country will be taken by Azerbaijan."

For Karabakh Armenians their home is Artsakh, a self-declared republic that does not exist on the world map, as this mountainous enclave is part of Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Despite having so much in common culturally, the two South Caucasus states of Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought for control of this land for decades in wars that have cost tens of thousands of lives.

In the most recent six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan recaptured all the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh held by Armenia since 1994.

A ceasefire brokered by Russia relied on the deployment of Russian peacekeepers to guarantee the safety of ethnic Armenians and to control the Lachin Corridor, allowing for the free movement of people and goods between Karabakh and the Republic of Armenia.

But with Russia's focus on the war in Ukraine, Azerbaijan blocked the road to Nagorno-Karabakh's regional capital Stepanakert (known in Azerbaijan as Khandendi) with government-backed environmental activists last December.

In April, Azerbaijan installed its own military checkpoint at the entrance to the Lachin Corridor justifying its "sovereign right" and "full restoration of its territorial integrity". It accused Armenia of using the road to bring in military supplies, which Armenia denies.

The only international humanitarian organisations with access to Nagorno-Karabakh are the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the mine-clearance organisation, the Halo Trust.

The Halo Trust says it has been unable to deploy demining teams in recent weeks because its staff are too exhausted to work after queuing for bread all night and returning home empty-handed. It says halting operations in Martakert is particularly unfortunate as it has become a hub for people displaced by the war in 2020 - and they are now at risk of injury as well as malnutrition.

Although the Red Cross has been carrying out medical evacuations it has not been able to guarantee safe age, as the Khachatryan family found out on 29 July.

That was the day 68-year-old Vagif Khachatryan was being transported to Armenia's capital Yerevan for urgent surgery for a heart condition.

"When they approached the Azerbaijani checkpoint, they said they needed to take him for 10 minutes to ask him a few questions," says his daughter Vera Khachatryan. "My father was taken away with a Red Cross employee; a few minutes later the Red Cross employee returned but my father was taken in an unknown direction."

Originally from Karabakh, she moved to the Armenian town of Jermuk after her village was returned to Azerbaijan as part of the ceasefire agreement.

"Now every minute, every second I am thinking: What if his heart stops":[]}