The road less travelled: Euronews visits the Lachin Corridor from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh

Euronews investigates recent claims and counter-claims of aid blockades and gun running in the south Caucasus.

Transcript

00:00 Getting around the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh is no simple task.

00:07 And that has very little to do with geography and everything to do with decades of conflict

00:13 and the remaining tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

00:20 The area is far from being controlled, so much so that the Azerbaijan military are offering

00:27 us a ride in this helicopter because we don't have enough time to inform the Russians that

00:34 we are following the city of Lachin.

00:37 Russian soldiers have been monitoring the area since Moscow brokered a 2020 ceasefire

00:42 between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which brought the last war to a halt but hasn't been enough

00:49 to secure peace.

00:51 We're standing in one of the most contentious areas in what is left of the Armenian-Azeri

00:56 conflict. This is the Lachin corridor, the only land passage that connects Armenian territory

01:03 to the pockets of the Nagorno-Karabakh that are still under control of ethnic Armenians.

01:09 And Azerbaijan has built this customs border office saying that it's their right to control

01:16 who goes into their territory. Yerevan has repeatedly accused Baku of blocking this road,

01:23 blocking this corridor and effectively holding the population of Nagorno-Karabakh under siege,

01:28 not allowing food and medicine to go through here, something that Azeri authorities have

01:33 repeatedly denied. And they have brought us here to show that the Lachin corridor is very

01:37 much open and operating, what you see in the distance beyond the Azeri border guards and

01:42 beyond the Russian soldiers that are here to monitor this area is a convoy of trucks

01:48 belonging to the Red Cross.

01:52 A group of civilians is being escorted back to the Nagorno-Karabakh after receiving medical

01:57 treatment in Armenia. Once security checks are done, they're through. At least today.

02:05 A statement released by the International Committee of the Red Cross a couple of hours

02:09 later warned that that was absolutely not the norm. And Armenians inside the Nagorno-Karabakh

02:16 confirm basic food items, medicine and fuel are not reaching them.

02:23 We have here about five, six big supermarkets and all of them are completely empty.

02:29 And even bread, difficult to get bread from the shops.

02:36 Baku insists Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh should use a different route to buy produce

02:41 from the country they are now part of, something the European Union`s stop diplomat has warned

02:47 Azerbaijan against, saying that for the benefit of normalization negotiations, which the EU

02:53 is helping mediate, humanitarian access should not be politicized.

02:59 But this week, a convoy of trucks that Armenia says is delivering humanitarian aid to the

03:04 region are stuck, not far away from the Azerbaijani checkpoint.

03:09 The alternative route Azerbaijan is offering to bring here some humanitarian aid, if you

03:18 will ask opinion in Karabakh, they would say why someone should create an artificial crisis

03:25 for us and offer food. We are free to choose where from we want to get food.

03:33 Let us do as we did before the blockade.

03:37 Annelies Borges from the Lachin corridor on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border for Euronews.

03:43 news.

03:45 (whooshing)