Armenia's international silence and impunity - 6 years since the tragedy in Barda

During the Second Karabakh War, the Barda district was subjected to rocket and artillery attacks three times - on October 5, 27 and 28. As a result, 29 people became martyrs, 112 were injured, and significant damage was caused to vehicles and civilian infrastructure.

The worst blow to Barda was inflicted on the morning of October 28.

The day before the attack, the Barda village of Garayusifli was shelled with Smerch missiles. 5 people were killed, including a 7-year-old girl, and 13 people were injured.

The enemy was not satisfied with this, and on the morning of the next day, they hit the city of Barda with a Smerch MLRS. The Armenian Armed Forces used cluster munitions prohibited by international law, and the strikes were carried out in the city center, in places with the greatest concentration of people, in order to cause maximum damage.

Barda is located away from the frontline zone. It was an ordinary day for the Bardeen people, they were minding their own business, going shopping, when fire fell on their heads. As a result of the missile strike, 21 people were killed and more than 70 were injured. Serious damage was caused to the city's civilian infrastructure, including the Bardinsk Medical and Diagnostic Center. The attack used a Tornado with a 9M55K projectile containing a 9N235 cluster warhead with 72 damaging elements.

This barbaric attack was so bloody that it horrified even those who traditionally tried to defend the Armenian side. This time, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch failed to equalize responsibility for the victims, as they tried to do after the rocket attacks on Ganja.

Nevertheless, Azerbaijan had to single-handedly bring the truth about Armenia's barbarity to the world community, even though foreign journalists were in Barda on the day of the shelling. A group of reporters from the New York Times newspaper found themselves in the epicenter of the shelling. American journalists were driving through the center of Barda when the rockets began to fall. They filmed everything, but the photo report was published only three years later. The New York Times photographer Ivor Prickett, known for his photo reports from conflict zones, admitted later that he was scared. After posting the photo on his Instagram page, he wrote that he refrained from posting because he received a lot of insults. "I was just documenting the story that happened on the Azerbaijani side. But it was enough to cause endless hatred from online trolls. The campaign against me went so far as to try to blacken my name in The New York Times, claiming that I allegedly faked photos of the missile attack on Barda, which killed more than 20 people. In any case, they didn't succeed," he wrote.

The journalists were lucky to be alive. According to the photographer, it was probably one of the scariest moments in his life. And he, he recalled, did reports on their many hot spots. The foreigners were caught off guard in the same way as the ordinary Bardinians.

What happened in Barda on October 28, 2020, was not just a terrible tragedy of this small town. This was the strongest accusation against Armenia and its barbaric methods of warfare. Therefore, the Armenians and their supporters tried very hard to prevent the widespread dissemination of information about the Bard in the world media. And not only. They tried to use this tragedy, about which the world knew little, for pro-Armenian propaganda. The fact is that the diaspora talked a lot about the alleged attacks by the Azerbaijani side on the cities of Armenia, but there was nothing to prove the fakes. Photos and videos of the shelling of Barda and Ganja, taken from the Internet, were provided as "evidence".

It was impossible to imagine such an ugly forgery. In October 2023, Vivek Ramaswamy, who was preparing to run for president of the United States, accompanied his hysterical accusations against Azerbaijan with footage of the destruction in Ganja and video of the shelling of Barda in Tucker Carlson's program. Against the background of these photos and videos, he talked about the "crimes" of Azerbaijanis against Armenians and claimed that "many atrocities are still not covered in the Western press."

Ivor Prickett's photo essay appeared after this ugly interview. And, unfortunately, only on social media.

On October 29, 2020, the Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan opened a criminal case on the fact of rocket attacks on Barda under articles 120.2.1 (premeditated murder committed by an organized group or criminal community), 120.2.4 (premeditated murder committed with extreme cruelty or in a generally dangerous manner), 120.2.12 (premeditated murder motivated by national, racial, religious hatred or enmity), 100.2 (waging aggressive war) and other articles of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan.

The lack of international attention to the crimes of Armenians and the lobbying of Armenian interests in the Western media space actually freed the hands of the aggressor. If the bombing of peaceful Azerbaijani cities in the first weeks of the war had been seriously condemned, perhaps the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces would have refrained from the largest and bloodiest attacks. But Armenia was not condemned. The separatists have taken responsibility again, but what is the demand from them? Moreover, as a counterbalance to the attack on Barda, I remember that the Armenian side came up with a fake story about the alleged shelling of a maternity hospital in Khankendi. Yerevan already knew that the war was lost, and they were in a hurry to turn the tables on Azerbaijan. The fake maternity hospital was supposed to overshadow the shelling of Barda on October 27 and 28, which claimed the lives of dozens of people, including children. It was furnished and decorated in the best traditions of Armenian agitprop. Among other things, even a Turkish F-16 appeared in it, which allegedly hit the maternity hospital on Ankara's personal orders!

As "evidence", photos of some empty rooms were posted, obviously under repair. The videos, which were supposed to shock the audience's imagination, only raised questions. There were no women in labor, there were only military personnel. Moreover, Ukrainian military commentator Alexander Kovalenko, based on available materials, proved that the bomb allegedly fired by a Turkish fighter jet at the maternity hospital on October 28 is actually the head of a projectile from 9M33 anti-aircraft missiles used in anti-aircraft missile systems in service with the Armenian army. That is, the Armenian Armed Forces fired a Russian TOR-M2KM at a drone, most likely, and the fragments of the missile defense system fell on the hospital building.

Meanwhile, photos and videos taken in Bard do not require any investigation. The only question that arises when viewing them is: how could the world not react to such an atrocity and condemn Armenia for a war crime?