April Fighting in Karabakh Claims Lives of Six Civilians

BAKU (Sputnik) — A total of six civilians were killed and 25 injured on a line of contact as a result of violence escalation in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in April, Azerbaijani Prosecutor General Zakir Qaralov said Saturday at a conference summing up the results of the prosecutor's office activities in the first half of 2016.

"Six civilians died and 25 sustained various injuries as a result of an intense shelling from the heavy weaponry, mortars and artillery from the Armenian side at the beginning of April at the front line of Azerbaijani districts, including Agdam, Tartar, Goranboy, Fuzuli and Aghjabadi districts," Qaralov was quoted as saying by the Trend news agency.

He added that 641 residential buildings and 22 social sites were damaged by the artillery shelling.

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.