More than 20 years have passed since the declaration of the ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh, yet, the people living in the areas across the international border between Armenia and Azerbaijan still suffer the consequences of the lasting conflict. The recent escalation of the conflict, the tit-for-tat clashes in July-August 2014, left the local communities more insecure and vulnerable. Every single day brings new challenges to this population ranging from life-endangering shootings to socio-economic problems; e.g. small scale subsistence farming is the only means of earning one’s living and even that is under threat due to inaccessibility of water.
The paper serves the purpose to assess and document the needs and requirements of these communities and to bring their voices to the public authorities and international organizations.
The study identifies and analyzes the factors that affect the security and livelihoods of the communities of 10 border villages of Armenia and Azerbaijan on each side, and proposes local community the suggestions on how to improve their own situation. As noted by the experts, the paper sets out the similarities of the problems the communities on both sides of the border face. The research covers only the border areas between Armenia and Azerbaijan, thus the present study does not cover the Line of Contact context, where Azerbaijan has a substantial number of civilians living in direct proximity to the front line.
The study was carried out between October-December 2014 within the framework of the project ‘Promoting community-focused responses to insecurity and conflict in border areas of Armenia and Azerbaijan’. The project is jointly implemented by Saferworld (UK), the Civil Society Institute (Yerevan) and Society for Humanitarian Research (Baku) with the financial support of the Human Security Division of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.
The detailed information about the study results you can find at the following web-site: http://protectcivilians-ru.blogspot.com/p/database-map-of-incidents.html.
