Azerbaijani Red Crescent accused of celebrating government’s actions in Nagorno-Karabakh

An investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has revealed the ways in which Azerbaijan impeded the humanitarian work of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and how the Azerbaijani Red Crescent Society supported Azerbaijani government narratives. 

The OCCRP investigation lasted more than a year, and was based on data about ICRC convoys ‘provided by inside sources’, as well as interviews and on-the-ground reporting, according to its author Rasmus Canbäck.

The OCCRP suggests their investigation provides ‘the most complete picture yet’ of how Azerbaijan impeded the work of ICRC, ‘one of the only international organisations that was providing life-saving humanitarian support on the ground.’ 

The article revealed a rift in the Red Cross movement itself over the conflict, citing many instances when the Azerbaijani Red Crescent Society, which along with the ICRC is a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, repeated Azerbaijani government narratives, including questioning the condition of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians amidst food and gas shortages, and publicly opposing the ICRC’s work in the territory.

The investigation claimed that the Azerbaijan Red Crescent was ‘deeply enmeshed with the authoritarian regime of President Ilham Aliyev’.

It noted that seven months into the siege, the ICRC issued a rare public statement declaring that it was no longer able to bring in any supplies at all, with a request to ‘the relevant decision-makers’ to ‘allow the ICRC to resume its essential humanitarian operations.’

The report also stated that the organisation was not allowed to carry fuel into Nagorno-Karabakh, even for the ICRC’s own needs. 

In addition, while the ICRC continued to negotiate with Azerbaijan over resuming humanitarian deliveries along the Lachin Corridor, the Azerbaijan Red Crescent organised a protest near the Aghdam road to the region, demanding access for itself. 

After the surrender and mass exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, the OCCRP said Red Crescent officials’ public statements ‘evinced little concern for the humanitarian crisis. Instead, they celebrated their government’s actions’.

The ICRC played a crucial role in evacuating the region’s population in need of advanced medical treatment during the blockade, which began in December 2022. The region’s population, which numbered over 100,000, saw shortages not only of food and fuel, but also medical supplies, which challenged the work of the medics.

Despite the International Court of Justice’s decision obliging Azerbaijan to ensure ‘unimpeded movement’ along the enclave’s only road to Armenia in both directions, the OCCRP claims that Azerbaijan ‘severely limited’ even the ICRC’s ability to operate there.

During the blockade, ICRC convoys evacuated around 1,500 people, including more than 800 medical patients. According to the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities, including a former official at the Ministry of Health, the need was far greater. While the OCCRP could not independently verify claims that more than double the number of patients needed to be evacuated, data obtained by reporters suggested that more people could have been transported, and that ‘transfers sometimes stopped entirely, at one point halting for nearly a month.’

A former senior ICRC employee directly involved in the organisation’s transports told OCCRP ‘each next convoy was harder, harder, harder’, adding that they ‘couldn’t work properly’. 

‘These periods correspond to the episodes of heightened Azerbaijani pressure described by the ICRC employee’ the article states. 

‘They put pressure, starting from minor things on the spot, up to big things at the Azerbaijani [Foreign Ministry],’ the former ICRC employee explained.

The investigation also cited a Freedom House Fact-Finding Report published in June. Among many other stories featured in the report, OCCRP highlighted one in which a Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian told of a relative who was in need of immediate evacuation and who died  ‘before his turn came.’

Responding to the report on Friday, Azerbaijani presidential assistant Hikmet Hajiyev attacked the ICRC.

‘[The] ICRC, contrary to its own statute, is engaged in behind the scenes leaks of false information and “background information” to so-called reports of dubious western politicians who are in the payroll of [the] Armenian government and Armenian lobby’, he wrote.

 For ease of reading, we choose not to use qualifiers such as ‘de facto’, ‘unrecognised’, or ‘partially recognised’ when discussing institutions or political positions within Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia. This does not imply a position on their status.