(18+) Azerbaijani soldiers torture wounded Armenian prisoners of war

On October 11 2022 Azerbaijanis spread another video on their internet platform about how Azerbaijani Soldiers tortured Armenian wounded prisoners of war. They were tortured and killed by Azerbaijanis, after which the Armenian side received their bodies. This video definitely confirms that a large number of Armenian prisoners of war were killed during captivity. This happened in the dugout of one of Verin Shorzha’s positions in the Gegharkunik region of Armenia on September 13 of 2022.

Below are two videos, one of which shows the execution of Armenian prisoners of war that also took place on September 13, 2022 and excerpts from a Human Rights Watch report related to that war crime, and the other video shows the torture of Armenian wounded prisoners of war.

On the afternoon of September 13, Azerbaijanis shared photos of the corpses of Armenian soldiers on Azerbaijani social networks, but only after the publication of this video it became clear that these soldiers were prisoners of war and were shot by Azerbaijani soldiers.

Human Rights Watch (Berlin, October 14, 2022)

The execution of Armenian prisoners of war (POWs), apparently by Azerbaijani forces during fighting between the countries in September 2022 is a war crime for which there needs to be accountability, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch analyzed a video posted on social media in early October showing the extrajudicial execution of at least seven Armenian POWs, apparently by Azerbaijani forces.

The killings took place during fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces that broke out in mid-September, when Azerbaijan made incursions into Armenia and along the border. The fighting was one of several breakdowns of the Russia-brokered 2020 truce.

The shooting appears to kill at least seven of the men. Rohini Haar, an emergency physician with expertise in health and human rights, who is an adjunct professor at the University of California-Berkeley School of Public Health, told Human Rights Watch that the likelihood of survival from sustained close-range automatic and semi-automatic rifle fire in this manner is low.


All three Armenian servicemen seen from the second video have been identified, they were tortured and executed by Azerbaijani soldiers.
At the time of filming, one of them was already killed and the other two were wounded (later executed).

In the first seconds of the video, an insignificant part of the Armenian soldier’s uniform is visible under a gray stand (the Armenian soldier was leaning under this stand), in the 3rd second, the Azerbaijani soldier hurts and fully throws the Armenian soldier to the floor with a movement of his foot, and at that moment the amount of blood that lost the Armenian soldier is visible (a cry of pain and a trace of blood shows the severe degree of injury of the Armenian POW) at the place from which the Azerbaijanian threw the wounded POW. Then the Azerbaijani in a tough way tries to drag and throw off the wounded and helpless Armenian soldier by the neck.

At the 21st second, the sound of a punch is heard and in the background it can be seen that the second Armenian prisoner of war is staggering from the punch and one of the Azerbaijani soldiers is aiming his rifle at the direction of the wounded Armenian prisoner of war.

At the 30th second, the lifeless body of the third Armenian soldier is seen. And after the Armenian soldier whose knees and left arm in the elbow area were shot was forced to crawl.

During whole video Azeri soldiers swearing on Russian and on Turkish languages, one of the torturers has a Turkish (not Azeri) accent, “Siktir amını siktiğimin köpeği,” he says.

These two videos shows only the execution of eleven Armenian prisoners of war. The bodies of the Armenian servicemen who were on videos were among the bodies handed over by the Azerbaijani side after the aggression. During the inspection of the bodies, it was found that most of the Armenian servicemen were shot at close range. And this examination proves that the Azerbaijani troops executed more Armenian prisoners of war that it was on this videos.

This behavior of Azerbaijanis is the result of the Armenophobic policy pursued by the Aliyev’s and Turkish regimes, which once again shows why Artsakh should never be part of Azerbaijan and all Armenian prisoners of war should be immediately released from prisons of Baku.