Azerbaijan commemorates March 31 Genocide victims

Azerbaijan commemorates March 31 Genocide victims
# 31 March 2017 11:16 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijani people from various districts began early Friday morning to visit the Guba Genocide Memorial Complex to honor the victims of March 31 – the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis.

At an event held in front of the memorial complex, detailed information was given about the act of genocide committed by Armenians against Azerbaijanis, APA’s northern bureau reported.

Guba genocide mass burial site was unearthed on April 1, 2007 during the excavation works. As result of the researches conducted by employees of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, remains of more than 400 people were found in the graveyard.

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed on 30 December 2009 an Order to create a “Genocide Memorial Complex” in the town of Guba. On September 18, 2013, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Mrs Mehriban Aliyeva inaugurated the Guba Genocide Memorial Complex. The genocide of the Muslim population in five districts of Baku province - Baku, Shamakhi, Guba, Javad and Goychay – have been reflected in the exposition of the monument-museum. Consisting of 19 sections, the museum’s exposition is presented in Azerbaijani, Russian and English languages. The exposition starts with photos reflecting the peaceful Guba on the eve of the 1918 events. Photos of old Guba, representatives of peacefully living Azerbaijani, Lezghin, Jewish and other peoples, and people related to different social strata are displayed here.

March 31 is marked as the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis. The massacre that started in Baku on 30 March 1918 resulted in the deaths of 20,000 civilians, including women, children and elderly people. During the massacre that lasted to April 2, Armenian Bolsheviks led by Stepan Shaumyan killed thousands of people, burnt Muslim shrines and confiscated the 400-million-manat estate of Baku residents. Tezepir Mosque was bombed, and one of the magnificent architectural buildings - Ismailiyyeh was burnt.

The policy of genocide against Azerbaijanis was not limited to only Baku.

On March 31, Armenian dashnaks killed 8,027 Azerbaijanis, including 2,560 women and 1,277 children in 53 villages of Shamakhi region. Over 16,000 civilians were murdered in 162 villages of Guba district. Armenian dashnaks burnt thousands of villages in Lankaran, Mughan and Nagorno-Karabakh, killing thousands of people.

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