After 28 years of Armenian occupation, residents of Azerbaijan's Kalbajar return home

A group of residents originally from Azerbaijan’s Kalbajar were finally able to visit their native lands after 28 years of exile during the Armenian occupation of Karabakh territories, according to Trend News Agency.

As part of the trip, which was organized by the State Committee for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons, Kalbajar residents will lay flowers on the lands where their relatives perished, and visit the grave of Shahlar Shukurov, a national hero, in the village of Zulfugarli.

Residents are also expected to stop by the village of Gunashli before the trip is concluded.

Around 60,000 Azerbaijanis living in Kalbajar when it was occupied were forced to abandon their homes and scattered across various regions of Azerbaijan.

Yerevan also brought Armenians to Kalbajar -- where no Armenians had been living there before -- and resettled them there illegally.

The Azerbaijani army entered Kalbajar following 28 years of illegal Armenian occupation after the Second Karabakh War in 2020.

Relations between the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Upper Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

During a subsequent 44-day conflict which ended under a deal signed Nov. 10, Azerbaijan liberated several cities and nearly 300 settlements and villages from Armenian nearly three-decade occupation.

The cease-fire is seen as a victory for Azerbaijan and a defeat for Armenia, whose armed forces withdrew in line with the agreement.