BAKU, October 19. /TASS/. The number of civilians killed since renewed clashes erupted in the area of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict grew to 61 while 282 others were wounded, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office reported on Monday.
"A total of 61 civilians were killed and 282 others were wounded in the shelling attacks by the Armenian armed forces on populated areas from September 27 to date," the statement says.
On October 18, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office reported that 60 civilians had been killed and 270 others had been wounded in military confrontation.
The Armenian armed forces’ shelling attacks also damaged 341 civil facilities, 1,846 houses and 90 residential buildings, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office said.
Following the consultations on the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh held in Moscow on Russia’s initiative on October 9, Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed on a humanitarian ceasefire to start at 12:00 p.m. on October 10 to exchange prisoners and bodies of those killed in the conflict. However, both sides started to accuse each other of breaching the truce immediately after the ceasefire came into effect.
On October 17, the foreign ministries of Armenia and Azerbaijan announced an agreement on a new humanitarian truce to start at midnight of October 18 (23:00 Moscow time on October 17). Nonetheless, the hostilities continue and both sides are trading accusations of breaching the humanitarian truce.
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..