[March 3, 1988]
Press account of anti-Armenian rioting in Azerbaijan
A Soviet spokesman said today that an unspecified number of people were killed in nationalist rioting Sunday in the southern Soviet city of Sumgait.
The spokesman, Gennadi I. Gerasimov, declined to give a precise number but indicated that the total was close to an unofficial figure of 17 deaths reported in Moscow by a journalist who is also a dissident.
[…]
The journalist, Sergei Grigoryants, who has generally proved to be a reliable source of information about the nationalist unrest, said he told 17 people died, and dozens injured, in clashes in Sumgait on Sunday between Azerbaijanis and Armenians.
Sumgait, an industrial center on the Caspian Sea, is in the Azerbaijan republic, which along with the neighboring Armenian republic has been shaken by nationalist protests and clashes in the last two weeks.
The disturbances have been among the most serious outbreaks of nationalist unrest since consolidation of the Soviet Union in the early 1920’s.
Government officials in Baku, the Azerbaijan capital, said today that hundreds of Azerbaijanis fled from their homes in Armenia during the disturbances last week and now needed assistance.
The officials, reached by telephone from Moscow, said a Government commission had been formed to help the refugees return to their homes in Armenia.
About 160,000 Azerbaijanis live in Armenia, a republic with a population of 3.1 million.
Azerbaijan has a population of 6.3 million, including about 475,000 Armenians.
Mr. Grirgoryants reported that violence flared across the two republics last week, and said one passenger train traveling from Baku Yerevan, the Armenian capital, was badly damaged by vandals as it made the journey.
Last week the Government confirmed that two people were killed and several dozen hurt during nationalist unrest in the two republics.
The Government reported Tuesday that military forces were called in Sunday to quell the rioting in Sumgait and had remained there to enforce a nighttime curfew.
Mr. Gerasimov said today that troops were still patrolling the city and that, as far as he knew, the curfew was still in effect between 8 PM and 7AM …
[The New York Times, March 3, 1988]
The Karabagh File, Documents and Facts, 1918-1988, First Edition, Cambridge Toronto 1988, by the ZORYAN INSTITUTE, edited by: Gerard J. LIBARIDIAN, pp. 104-105.
