YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—Nagorno-Karabakh’s population is increasingly suffering from malnutrition and facing the imminent threat of starvation because of Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin corridor, an official in Stepanakert said on Wednesday.

Baku aggravated the shortages of food, medicine, fuel and other essential items there when it tightened the blockage of Karabakh’s sole land link with Armenia on June 15, banning limited amounts of relief supplies carried out by Russian peacekeepers and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

An aide to Karabakh premier Gurgen Nersisyan warned that the food shortages will become even more acute in the days ahead.

“Some food can still be found,” Artak Beglaryan told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service from Stepanakert. “People are trying to make sure that they are not totally hungry, but the scale of malnutrition is already very large.”

“We can’t say that in a few days’ time people will be dying of hunger, barring exceptional cases. But what we can say is that very soon there will be hungry people who haven’t eaten for a whole day,” he said.

Over the last few weeks, bread was one of the few staples limited quantities of which Karabakh residents could buy in local food stores. But it too all but disappeared from shop shelves in recent days, with desperate citizens spending many hours trying to buy flour and bake bread at home.

Beglaryan explained that Karabakh has run out of its wheat reserves and is now switching to grain currently harvested by local farmers.

“The harvesting work is very slow for three or even four main reasons,” he said, listing a lack of fuel, the absence of spare parts for tractors and combine harvesters, systematic Azerbaijani gunfire targeting such agricultural equipment, and last week’s heavy rainfall.

Echoing a statement by a Karabakh food agency, Beglaryan said that the newly harvested grain needs to dry up before it can be milled and supplied to bakeries. The bread crisis should be alleviated in a couple of days, added the official.

Ruzanna Tadevosyan, a 27-year-old resident of Stepanakert, was skeptical about these assurances. “They always give hopes that do not materialize,” she said of the local authorities.
Tadevosian, who breastfeeds her 1-year-old baby, was among several dozen mothers who rallied in Stepanakert on Tuesday to protest against the crippling shortages and demand stronger government action. They were received by Arayik Harutiunuyan, the Karabakh president.

Tadevosyan said Harutiunyan told them to “wait for two or three more days.” “The president said he has some expectations from the United States and Russia and in two or three days he will make a statement,” she said.

In what may have been a related incident, a man was detained in Stepanakert early on Wednesday after firing gunshots in the air. Some local residents claimed that he demanded food for his children.

Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan warned that Karabakh’s population is “on the brink of starvation” when he addressed on July 20 an emergency meeting of the OSCE’s Permanent Council in Vienna. He urged the international community to put stronger pressure on Azerbaijan.

The United States, the European Union and Russia have repeatedly called for an immediate end to the blockade. Baku has dismissed their appeals, saying that the Karabakh Armenians should only be supplied with food and other basic items from Azerbaijan.