Azerbaijanis start returning to recaptured lands
- 11 May, 07:01
Azerbaijan has started returning IDPs to their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh three years after the region’s recapture from Armenia.
The first group of internally displaced persons from Shusha returned to the city on May 10 after the inauguration of the first residential building in the city. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev handed over the keys of the apartments to the first residents who moved to Shusha, the largest city in Nagorno-Karabakh. The majority-Azerbaijani city in the region was captured by Armenian forces in 1992.
Addressing Shusha residents, Aliyev described the event as “historic”, reminding that Shusha is already the sixth residential area to which former IDPs are returning.
“We are implementing large-scale programs in all liberated territories. Former IDPs are also expected to return to the village of Sus of Lachin today, so life will be brought back to at least 20 residential areas before the end of this year,” Aliyev said.
Azerbaijan recaptured Shusha and the formerly Armenian-held regions in and around Nagorno-Karabakh during the six-week war in 2020.
Stressing Shusha’s importance for Azerbaijani culture and history, Aliyev said. “I did everything in my power to return you and all the former IDPs to your native land.”
“I was once asked about Shusha, and I said that our work would be incomplete without Shusha, and I think everyone understood that we were not going to stop until Shusha was liberated,” he went on saying.
On the same day, Aliyev inaugurated two small hydroelectric power plants owned by government-owned Azerenerji energy company in another recaptured Lachin district.
