Azerbaijan, Baku, March 31 / Trend A.Huseynbala /
A memorial complex commemorating genocide victims will be erected near a mass grave in the Guba, Azerbaijan, local Executive Power head Rauf Habibov told journalists March 31.
"Preliminary work has already begun in connection with building the complex," Habibov said.
In March 1918, Stepan Shaumyan's Dashnak-Bolshevik government seized power and launched a genocide against the Azerbaijani people. Under the decree signed by national leader Heydar Aliyev in 1998, March 31 became the Day of Azerbaijani Genocide.
According to information from the Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences' History Institute, 700,000 Azerbaijanis were killed by Armenians in the course of several days from March 24, 1918. The Armenians also destroyed 75 Shamakhi, 122 Guba and 115 Zangazur villages.
Scientists later proved that the remains of these victimes were buried in a mass grave in Guba by Armenian Dashnaks in 1918. The Heydar Aliyev Foundation has already prepared a draft of the memorial complex commemorating the genocide victims.
A group of MPs and NGO and civil society organization representatives visited the mass grave in Guba today.
Guba is located in 170 kilometers from Baku.