re the systematic genocide of the muslim population by the armenians in article apr massey ac nz cblack massey ac nz c k black writes mr furr does it again very sensible he says how many mutlus can dance on the head of a pin and lo and behold he invokes the mr of the net himself our beloved serdar a program designed to seek out the words terrx and ghex in the same sentence and gets the automated reply must you rave so fascist x soviet armenian government engaged in disgusting cowardly massacres of azeri women and children i am really sorry if that fact bothers you our mutlu oboy this is exciting first you discuss your literature tastes then your fantasies and now your choices of entertainment have you considered just turning on the tv and leaving those of us who aren t brain dead to continue to discuss the genocide of million muslim people by the x soviet armenian government etc etc etc more ridicule i take it still not addressing the original points made joel don t do this to me mate i m only a poor plant scientist i don t know how to make kill files my k key works overtime as it is just to then what seems to be the problem did you ever read newspaper at all painful search the gruesome extent of february s killings of azeris by armenians in the town of hojali is at last emerging in azerbaijan about men women and children dead in the worst outrage of the four year war over nagorny karabakh the figure is drawn from azeri investigators hojali officials and casualty lists published in the baku press diplomats and aid workers say the death toll is in line with their own estimates the february attack on hojali by armenian forces was one of the last moves in their four year campaign to take full control of nagorny karabakh the subject of a new round of negotiations in rome on monday the bloodshed was something between a fighting retreat and a massacre but investigators say that most of the dead were civilians the awful number of people killed was first suppressed by the fearful former communist government in baku later it was blurred by armenian denials and grief stricken azerbaijan s wild and contradictory allegations of up to dead the state prosecuter aydin rasulov the cheif investigator of a man team looking into what azerbaijan calls the hojali disaster said his figure of people dead was a minimum on preliminary findings a similar estimate was given by elman memmedov the mayor of hojali an even higher one was printed in the baku newspaper ordu in may dead people named and more than bodies reported unidentified this figure of nearly dead is quoted as official by leila yunusova the new spokeswoman of the azeri ministry of defence francois zen ruffinen head of delegation of the international red cross in baku said the muslim imam of the nearby city of agdam had reported a figure of bodies received at his mosque from hojali most of them civilians we did not count the bodies but the figure seems reasonable it is no fantasy mr zen ruffinen said we have some idea since we gave the body bags and products to wash the dead mr rasulov endeavours to give an unemotional estimate of the number of dead in the massacre don t get worked up it will take several months to get a final figure the year old lawyer said at his small office mr rasulov knows about these things it took him two years to reach a firm conclusion that people were killed and wounded when soviet troops and tanks crushed a nationalist uprising in baku in january those nationalists the popular front finally came to power three weeks ago and are applying pressure to find out exactly what happened when hojali an azeri town which lies about miles from the border with armenia fell to the armenians officially people have so far been certified as dead being the number of people that could be medically examined by the republic s forensic department this is just a small percentage of the dead said rafiq youssifov the republic s chief forensic scientist they were the only bodies brought to us remember the chaos and the fact that we are muslims and have to wash and bury our dead within hours of these people were women and were children under years old gunshots killed people shrapnel killed and axes or blunt instruments killed exposure in the highland snows killed the last three thirty three people showed signs of deliberate mutilation including ears noses breasts or penises cut off and eyes gouged out according to professor youssifov s report those bodies examined were less than a third of those believed to have been killed mr rasulov said files from mr rasulov s investigative commission are still disorganised lists of azeri militiamen are dead here six policemen there and in handwriting of a mosque attendant the names of corpses brought to be washed in just one day the most heartbreaking account from witnesses interviewed so far comes from towfiq manafov an azeri investigator who took a helicopter flight over the escape route from hojali on february there were too many bodies of dead and wounded on the ground to count properly in hojali people by the stream and the road and visible around nakhchivanik village mr manafov wrote in a statement countersigned by the helicopter pilot people waved up to us for help we saw three dead children and one two year old alive by one dead woman the live one was pulling at her arm for the mother to get up we tried to land but armenians started a barrage against our helicopter and we had to return there has been no consolidation of the lists and figures in circulation because of the political upheavals of the last few months and the fact that nobody knows exactly who was in hojali at the time many inhabitants were displaced from other villages taken over by armenian forces the independent london heroes who fought on amid the bodies aref sadikov sat quietly in the shade of a cafe bar on the caspian sea esplanade of baku and showed a line of stitches in his trousers torn by an armenian bullet as he fled the town of hojali just over three months ago writes hugh pope i m still wearing the same clothes i don t have any others the year old carpenter said beginning his account of the hojali disaster i was wounded in five places but i am lucky to be alive mr sadikov and his wife were short of food without electricity for more than a month and cut off from helicopter flights for days they sensed the armenian noose was tightening around the to people left in the straggling azeri town on the edge of karabakh at about pm a bombardment started such as we had never heard before eight or nine kinds of weapons artillery heavy machine guns the lot mr sadikov said soon neighbours were pouring down the street from the direction of the attack some huddled in shelters but others started fleeing the town down a hill through a stream and through the snow into a forest on the other side to escape the townspeople had to reach the azeri town of agdam about miles away they thought they were going to make it until at about dawn they reached a bottleneck between the two armenian villages of nakhchivanik and saderak none of my group was hurt up to then then we were spotted by a car on the road and the armenian outposts started opening fire mr sadikov said azeri militiamen fighting their way out of hojali rushed forward to force open a corridor for the civilians but their efforts were mostly in vain mr sadikov said only people from his group of made it through including his wife and militiaman son seven of his immediate relations died including his year old elder brother i only had time to reach down and cover his face with his hat he said pulling his own big flat turkish cap over his eyes we have never got any of the bodies back the first groups were lucky to have the benefit of covering fire one hero of the evacuation alif hajief was shot dead as he struggled to change a magazine while covering the third group s crossing mr sadikov said another hero elman memmedov the mayor of hojali said he and several others spent the whole day of february in the bushy hillside surrounded by dead bodies as they tried to keep three armenian armoured personnel carriers at bay as the survivors staggered the last mile into agdam there was little comfort in a town from which most of the population was soon to flee the night after we reached the town there was a big armenian rocket attack some people just kept going mr sadikov said i had to get to the hospital for treatment i was in a bad way they even found a bullet in my sock victims of war an azeri woman mourns her son killed in the hojali massacre in february left nurses struggle in primitive conditions centre to save a wounded man in a makeshift operating theatre set up in a train carriage grief stricken relatives in the town of agdam right weep over the coffin of another of the massacre victims calculating the final death toll has been complicated because muslims bury their dead within hours photographs liu heung ap frederique lengaigne reuter the independent london serdar argic we closed the roads and mountain passes that might serve as ways of escape for the turks and then proceeded in the work of extermination ohanus appressian in soviet armenia today there no longer exists a single turkish soul sahak melkonian
