Three Armenian Soldiers Killed, Four Wounded in New Azeri Ceasefire Violation

STEPANAKERT — Three Armenian soldiers have been killed and another four wounded in Nagorno-Karabakh as a result of new ceasefire violations committed by Azerbaijan, the press service of Nagorno-Karabakh defense ministry said on Thursday.

It said the attack occurred on March 19 at 08:30 local time when a group of Azerbaijani commandos attacked Armenian military positions situated in the northern direction (Gyulistan). “During the fighting that lasted for about two hours the personnel on duty as well as reinforcements forced the enemy to run away. During the pursuit the group of Azeri commandoes was totally destroyed on the approaches of their own positions,” the statement said.

The three killed Karabakh Defense Army servicemen were identified as privates Hakob Khachatryan (born in 1996), Edward Hayrapetyan (born in 1995) and Arshak Harutyunyan (born in 1995); another four soldiers were wounded.

“The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic defense ministry shares this heavy grief and expresses its support to family members, relatives and colleagues of the killed servicemen. Other circumstances of the incident and evidence will be presented later,” it said.

The Nagorno-Karabakh president’s spokesman David Babayan told the media that the situation at the borders in recent days has been tense and violations have been registered on a regular basis.