A recently released report by the rights watchdog Freedom House concludes that the forced migration of an estimated 100,000 Armenians from Nagorno Karabakh in September 2023 amounted to “ethnic cleansing” by Azerbaijani forces during their complete takeover of the territory.

“Azerbaijani authorities waged a deliberate campaign to empty Nagorno Karabakh of its ethnic Armenian population,” according to a Freedom House statement. The report’s conclusions were based on a fact-finding mission conducted by Freedom House representatives, along with researchers from six other partner organizations. 

“The documented evidence aligns with the definition of ethnic cleansing put forward by a UN commission of experts in the context of the former Yugoslavia,” the report reads. “The acts documented in Nagorno-Karabakh constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity”. 

The report’s release was timed to coincide with the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29), the annual UN forum on climate change, held this year in the Azerbaijani capital Baku.

The Armenian population of Karabakh fled the breakaway region in late September last year following a nine-month blockade and a lightning military offensive by Azerbaijani troops. Since then, the Azerbaijani government has moved to rebuild Karabakh: Armenians say reconstruction efforts in the territory have featured the destruction of buildings and monuments of significant Armenian cultural value.

The Freedom House report is the first instance of a watchdog group or international body formally classifying the events in September 2023 in Karabakh as ethnic cleansing.

A UN report based on a mission undertaken in late 2023 did not find sufficient evidence of the use of violence or intimidation during the Armenian population’s mass exodus from Karabakh. “The mission was struck by the sudden manner in which the local population left their homes and the suffering the experience must have caused,” the UN report noted. “The mission did not come across any reports – neither from the local population interviewed nor from the interlocutors – of incidences of violence against civilians following the latest ceasefire.”

Azerbaijani officials have dismissed the accusations of ethnic cleansing, claiming that the displacement in Karabakh was “voluntary” and that the Karabakh Armenians were given a choice to stay and live under Azerbaijani rule. 

The Armenian and Azerbaijani governments have both filed suits in the International Court of Justice relating to the Karabakh conflict and alleged war crimes. Armenia is demanding that the UN Court hold Azerbaijan responsible for misdeeds committed against the Armenian population during the Second Karabakh War. Azerbaijan, in a counter lawsuit, has dismissed allegations of cleansing, while accusing Armenia of criminal actions in forcing Azerbaijani citizens off their land during the First Karabakh War in the late 1980s-early ‘90s. While it may take years to resolve the suits, the court has issued several interim judgments, including upholding displaced Armenians’ right of return to Karabakh.