Azerbaijan’s president vows revenge after missile strike in Ganja kills at least 12 civilians
- The strike came only hours after the Nagorno-Karabakh capital Stepanakert underwent a shelling attack
- Rescuers called for silence so that they could detect sounds of survivors after a building was reduced to rubble
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev vowed on Saturday to strike back against Armenia after shelling on his country’s second largest city Ganja left at least 12 civilians dead and dozens injured.
Aliyev said Azerbaijan’s army would retaliate against Armenia and “take revenge on the battlefield”, in televised remarks hours after the shelling on a residential area in Ganja flattened rows of houses.
The missile strike marks a sharp escalation of the conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The early hours attack, which saw a second missile strike another part of Ganja and a third reach the nearby strategic city of Mingecevir, came hours after Azerbaijani forces shelled the ethnic Armenian separatist region’s capital Stepanakert.
The seeming tit-for-tat attacks further undermines international efforts to calm a resurgence of fighting between Christian Armenians and Muslim Azerbaijanis before it draws in regional powers Russia and Turkey.
Rows of houses turned to rubble by the strike, which shattered the walls and ripped the roofs off buildings in the surrounding streets. People ran outside in shock and tears, stumbling through dark muddy alleys in their slippers, some wearing bathroom robes and pyjamas.