First Nagorno-Karabakh War: Dozens of Armenian civilians were massacred in the village of Maraga by Azerbaijani forces.
First Nagorno-Karabakh War
The First Nagorno-Karabakh War was an ethnic and territorial conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994, in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by Armenia, and the Republic of Azerbaijan with support from Turkey. As the war progressed, Armenia and Azerbaijan, both former Soviet republics, entangled themselves in protracted, undeclared mountain warfare in the mountainous heights of Karabakh as Azerbaijan attempted to curb the secessionist movement in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Maraga massacre
The Maraga massacre was the mass murder of Armenian civilians in the village of Maraga (Maragha) by Azerbaijani troops, which had captured the village on April 10, 1992, in the course of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The villagers, including men, women, children and elderly, were killed indiscriminately and deliberately, their houses were pillaged and burnt; the village was destroyed. Amnesty International reports that over 100 women, children and elderly were tortured and killed and a further 53 were taken hostage, 19 of whom were never returned.
Maragha, Azerbaijan
Maragha or Shikharkh, formerly known as Leninavan, is a town in the Aghdara District of Azerbaijan, in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The town had an ethnic Armenian-majority population in 1989, which had the status of a village at the time. The town was the site of a large massacre of ethnic Armenians by Azerbaijani forces during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.