“Siege starvation,” according to Tom Dannenbaum, a Professor of International Law, is “a war crime of societal torture.”
For over 4 months, the indigenous Armenians of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) in the South Caucuses have endured siege starvation: they are victims of an illegal blockade, causing starvation and mental anguish at the hands of the government of Azerbaijan.
From December 12, 2022 to April 28, 2023 so-called “eco-activists” of Azerbaijan blockaded the Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting Artsakh with the rest of the world, exposing the Armenian population there to starvation in an attempt to force them to leave their ancestral homeland. Then, on April 23rd, Azerbaijan declared it had established a military checkpoint on the Lachin Corridor. However, humanitarian aid shipments to Artsakh have been disrupted by Azerbaijan’s new checkpoint, Armenian media reported: “Artsakh authorities announced that humanitarian assistance delivered by Russian peacekeepers from Armenia to Artsakh could not be transported for three days following the creation of the checkpoint.”