BAKU, October 4. /TASS/. Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry reported that one civilian was killed and four others were wounded in a missile strike in Ganja, a city in western Azerbaijan.
"After a missile strike carried out by the Armenian side on Ganja, the second-largest city of Azerbaijan, located 60 km from the Armenian border, one was killed and four civilians were wounded. The city sustained major damage," the Foreign Ministry wrote on its Twitter account.
In its turn, Azerbaijan’s Emergencies Ministry reported that two civilians, who had been under the rubble of a house destroyed by the strike, were rescued.
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.