Wie Aserbaidschan während der Belagerung von Berg-Karabach die Hilfe des Roten Kreuzes behinderte

For nine months, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh endured an Azerbaijani blockade that cut off essential supplies and medical evacuations.

The International Committee of the Red Cross was the only international humanitarian organization with a mandate to bring supplies in and people out. But they were repeatedly confronted with severe obstruction from the Azerbaijani government.

Over 1,500 people, including 800 medical patients, were evacuated — but more than twice as many were in need.

A former ICRC employee told us how bureaucratic hurdles and outright bans on movement made it ever-more-difficult to evacuate the sick. ‘Each next convoy was harder, harder, harder,’ the employee said. At one point, evacuations were halted for an entire month.

In addition, a local member of the Red Cross movement — the Azerbaijani Red Crescent — joined the Azerbaijani government line. Closely tied to President Ilham Aliyev’s regime, the organization publicly questioned the suffering of the people blockaded in Nagorno-Karabakh even as food and medicine ran out and kindergartens closed due to lack of supplies.

Our latest story, published today, isn’t just about a blockade. It’s a look at what happens to ordinary people when humanitarian aid is politicized.

Read our full story to learn more: [https://www.occrp.org/en/feature/we-couldnt-work-properly-how-azerbaijan-obstructed-red-cross-relief-during-the-nagorno-karabakh-siege](https://www.occrp.org/en/feature/we-couldnt-work-properly-how-azerbaijan-obstructed-red-cross-relief-during-the-nagorno-karabakh-siege)

This is just plain horrible!

I think the ICRC operations were paused for a month because of this incident, it’s a legitimate security issue if non-ICRC staff are using Red Cross emblems

>However, we regret that without our knowledge four hired drivers tried to transport some commercial goods in their own vehicles which were temporarily displaying the ICRC emblem. These individuals were not ICRC staff members and their service contracts were immediately terminated by the ICRC.

https://www.icrc.org/en/document/icrc-statement-transport-unauthorised-goods-across-lachin-corridor

Turkey also blocked humanitarian aid in 1992 when Armenia was struggling to recover from i) the 1988 earthquake, ii) the collapse of the internal USSR trading system, and iii) the energy crisis due to Azerbaijan cutting the pipelines:

>One of the earliest occasions was the vital shipment of wheat which reached the earthquake-stricken Armenia75) through Turkey, during the harsh winter of 1992-1993. What distinguished this shipment was its financial details: After many Byzantine tactics and several months of delay, Turkey finally agreed to send the 100,000 tons of wheat which the European community had promised to replace. After having humiliated the entire population of Armenia in bread queues, Turkey finally began to ship the wheat across the border in a very slow pace and to an extremely high price. The transport of wheat, all the way from Russia to Armenia, cost only two dollars per ton, payable in deprecated rubles. Turkey charged $56 per ton in hard currency. Armenia was forced to empty its reserves of foreign currency in order to avoid a bread riot. There were many similar actions where Ankara forced the Armenian civil aircrafts down on Turkish soil and delayed the humanitarian aid for several months.

Avedian, Vahagn. „[Recognition, responsibility and reconciliation: the trinity of the Armenian genocide](https://lucris.lub.lu.se/ws/portalfiles/portal/3719005/4174624.pdf).“ europa ethnica 70.3/4 (2013): 77-86.