Sawt Falasteen - Red Cross says Azerbaijan has blocked Karabakh access

In April, Azerbaijan set up a border checkpoint at the entrance to the Lachin corridor -- the only road linking Karabakh to Armenia.

The Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh has been at the centre of a decades-long territorial dispute between the Caucasus arch-foes.

The move followed a months-long blockade by Azerbaijani environmental activists, which Yerevan claims has led to a humanitarian crisis complete with shortages of food and fuel.

Azerbaijan insisted at the time that civilian transport could go unimpeded through the Lachin corridor.

Last week Armenia accused Baku of blocking traffic through the Lachin corridor.

"There has been no Red Cross-facilitated movement through the Lachin corridor since Thursday," Zara Amatuni, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Armenia, told AFP.

"Humanitarian supplies of medicines and other medical materials to hospitals in Karabakh and transportation of seriously ill patients have been suspended," she said.

Last week, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that the "humanitarian situation in Karabakh has worsened dramatically".

He said "food supplies to Karabakh have practically ceased and patients are not being allowed to be taken to hospitals in Armenia for medical treatment."

Baku's "actions prove that Azerbaijan is pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing in Karabakh," he added.

On February 22, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) -- the UN's top judicial body -- ordered Azerbaijan to ensure free movement on the road.

The two former Soviet republics have fought two wars for control of Karabakh, in the 1990s and again in 2020.

Six weeks of fighting in autumn 2020 ended with a Russian-sponsored ceasefire that saw Armenia cede swathes of territories it had controlled for decades.

There have been frequent clashes at the two countries' shared border despite the ongoing peace talks between Baku and Yerevan under the mediation from the European Union and United States.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, ethnic Armenian separatists in Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan. The ensuing conflict claimed some 30,000 lives.

M.AlAhmad--SF-PST