BAKU, October 4. /TASS/. Two civilians were killed and two others were wounded in the artillery shelling carried out from Armenia’s side against Beylagan, an Azerbaijani city located near the contact line in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor-General’s Office reported on Sunday.
"The residents of the city, Zulfia Ismaylova and Arzu Asadova, were killed and two other persons were wounded in the artillery shelling of Beylagan carried out from the Armenian side," the statement said. The shelling inflicted serious damage to the houses. The prosecutors in Beylagan opened a criminal case into the incident.
Two civilians were wounded in the Tetersky district adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh. According to the Prosecutor-General’s Office, a total of 22 civilians have been killed and another 74 have been wounded since the start of combat actions in the conflict zone.
Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The area experienced flare-ups of violence in the summer of 2014, in April 2016 and this past July. Azerbaijan and Armenia have imposed martial law and launched mobilization efforts. Both parties to the conflict have reported casualties, among them civilians.
The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the highland region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory that had been part of Azerbaijan before the Soviet Union break-up, but primarily populated by ethnic Armenians, broke out in February 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1992-1994, tensions boiled over and exploded into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and seven adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them. Talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement have been ongoing since 1992 under the OSCE Minsk Group, led by its three co-chairs - Russia, France and the United States.