More than 30 years after the First Garabagh War, 4,009 Azerbaijani citizens remain registered as missing.
According to the Operative Information Center-OMM, this was stated by Hikmat Hajiyev, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan and Head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration, on his social media account "X".
Hajiyev emphasized that the issue of missing persons remains one of the most painful humanitarian consequences of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. "Despite more than three decades passing since the First Garabagh War, 4,009 Azerbaijani citizens are still registered as missing. Thousands of families continue to live in uncertainty, deprived of the fundamental right to know the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones," he stated.
He noted that ongoing search, exhumation, and identification efforts have resulted in the recovery of 889 sets of human remains. Through DNA and forensic analysis, 313 missing persons have been identified, and the remains of 226 individuals have been handed over to their families for proper burial.
The discovery of 32 mass graves in Azerbaijan's liberated territories serves as further evidence of the scale of this humanitarian tragedy and underscores the necessity of continued cooperation to clarify the fate of the missing. Resolving the issue of missing persons is not merely a humanitarian obligation; it is a matter of justice, human dignity, reconciliation, and sustainable peace. Each identified individual brings a family closer to answers, and every recovered set of remains contributes to the restoration of truth and the preservation of memory.
