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Azerbaijan to host int'l Children of War and Armed Conflicts conference

Society Materials 23 February 2009 15:21 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 23 / Trend , K. Zarbaliyeva/

The international Children of War and Armed Conflicts conference will be held in Azerbaijan in late May, Azerbaijani Ombudsman Elmira Suleymanova said at an event dedicated to the 17th anniversary of the Khojali Genocide.

UN Secretary General Special Envoy for Children of War and Armed Conflicts Radhika Kumaraswamy will attend the conference.

Suleymanova said the envoy is expected to visit a recently discovered mass burial site of genocide victims in Guba. 

Under the campaign launched jointly with the Education Ministry, the signatures of around 200,000 schoolchildren were gathered to assess the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Khojali Genocide and Armenian aggression towards Azerbaijan, she said.

She said the signatures will be given to Kumaraswamy and international organizations.

The international organizations will be urged to establish peace in the region and punish guilty parties.

The Azerbaijani Prosecutor General's Office has launched an investigation into the Khojali Genocide. 

On the night of Feb. 25, 1992, Armenian separatists seized the Khojali settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh. Russian tanks played an active role in capturing the area.

Within hours, over 600 unarmed Azerbaijani citizens were killed. Among them were 106 women and 83 children. The massacre continued for days, while the Armenian separatists killed their hostages and cut the heads off of Azerbaijani military personnel. A total of 487 people were left disabled and 1,275 people were taken prisoner. The fate of 150 people went missing.

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