Body collection underway
As fog rolled into a darkening valley in Nagorno Karabakh, soldiers convened on a battle-scarred hilltop to collect the fallen. Wrapped in white sheets, each corpse was lifted into minibuses by teams of Armenian servicemen, tasked with the grim duty of collecting the dead.
These, though, were not their comrades, but their sworn enemies — the Azerbaijani troops whom they have spent the last six weeks fighting. Yet each lifeless body that littered the roadside was handled with care, despite the bitter defeat that the gunned-down Azeri soldiers had helped inflict upon the Armenian side.
“We have a job to do — that is all,” said Babken, a young Armenian soldier in his early 20s. “The peace deal is cruel. I was devastated that we sacrificed so many lives and ended up losing so much land. But these bodies must be returned, and we too must receive ours.” A bearded fighter in his 50s looked on, smoking a cigarette. "My son is trapped on the other side,” he said. “I don’t know if he’s a prisoner or if he’s dead. Either way, I want to see him soon.”
Body collection underway
Credit: Jack Losh
The exchange of bodies from the now-silent battlefield around Nagorno Karabakh was prompted by last week’s Russian-brokered peace deal, which halted fighting around the disputed territory and secured territorial advances for Azerbaijan. One key term of the agreement stipulates the exchange of war dead between both sides.
Loaded with their cargo, the minibuses formed a line on the rutted asphalt as a green jeep bearing a Russian flag arrived, driven by one of the 2,000 peacekeepers that Moscow has now sent to the region. The Russian soldier got out, a blue surgical mask around his face, and spoke briefly with the Armenian platoon. Ten minutes later, the minibuses set off down the empty highway to complete the exchange, disappearing in the mist.
Coordinated by the Russian peacekeeping force, and overseen by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the body swap came amid continued turmoil in Nagorno Karabakh. Thousands of ethnic Armenians living in the territory — a separatist enclave within Azerbaijan that broke away in the 1990 — have spent recent days fleeing towns and villages before control of certain areas is handed back to Azerbaijan.
Over the weekend, highways through the territory were jammed with traffic ahead of the handover deadline, which Azerbaijan has subsequently postponed until next week. The transfer of land has fuelled fears about the future of Armenian religious sites within them. Over the weekend, Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, told his Azeri counterpart, Ilham Aliev, to guarantee against the desecration of Christian churches and monasteries.
“[Mr Putin] underscored the importance of securing the safety and normal church life of these shrines,” the Kremlin said.
The body swap took place on the road that connects the territory’s capital, Stepanakert — which is still held by ethnic Armenians — with Shushi, a nearby town now taken by Azeris. The town — known as Shusha to Azeris — is a site of profound cultural importance to both sides. Azerbaijan regards it as the birthplace of poets and musicians, while Armenians used to flock to its Christian cathedral, which now has a missile hole in its dome.
Before the exchange, corpses had been left exposed to the elements for days, scattered by the road in various states of decay and mutilation. Among the dead, one young man simply appeared to be sleeping; another had been reduced to a headless torso. Nearby, in Azerbaijani-held territory, around a hundred dead ethnic Armenian soldiers lay strewn by the roadside, according to a Reuters report. The Armenian government says that more than 1,300 Armenian soldiers died in the conflict, while Azerbaijan has not disclosed military casualty figures.
Meanwhile, relatives of missing ethnic Armenian soldiers were gathering outside the ICRC building in Stepanakert, desperate for news of their own missing loved ones. As weary-looking figures asked ICRC staff when the bodies would arrive, one woman sat by the entrance alone, sobbing into her hands.
A burning home in Nagorno Karabakh
While both sides appeared to be observing the protocols of the corpse exchange, elsewhere there is little sign of reconciliation. Many homes in areas scheduled to be handed back to Azerbaijan’s control have been torched by their fleeing Armenian owners, who do not want Azeris commandeering them.
Hayk Harutunyan, a 24-year-old lawyer from Yerevan, had come to help his aunt and uncle pack up their home before setting it alight. “To be honest, none of this feels real,” he said, as a blaze engulfed his relatives’ dwelling. “One day my aunt and uncle may be able to return, but who knows. They are very strong people to have the courage to burn down their own house.”
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