No return, no home: IDP’s displacement has no end in sight
“It would be good to establish a state committee on reintegration instead of a committee on IDPs, and to resolve issues related to the reconstruction of the regions with the participation of citizens and specialists. We learn of changes by chance from the statements of the president or some official. However, those places must be restored in such a way that people are willing to live there”, said Anar Mammadli.
According to him, the steps taken by the government are too hasty and not planned. The government has not yet said when the IDPs will return to Karabakh, and has only advised not to return to the liberated lands. Back in November last year, Idris Ismayilov, chief of staff of the National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA), told reporters that more than 80% of the territories liberated from Armenian occupation in Karabakh are still considered dangerous due to the large number of minefields. According to him, it will take three to five years to clear the area of mines.
“If normal living conditions and socio-economic environment are not created there for the next ten years, it is not the right approach to tell them today, ‘You will not be given an apartment here, return to your regions,'” Anar Mammadli said.
Meanwhile, Naila Zamanova, an IDP living in a dilapidated dormitory building, is asking the government to provide them with “a small apartment” before returning to their homeland :
“How long will it take?” Two or three years? Maybe we will never see those days and we will die. After all our suffering we have suffered here, We’ll get there only to be buried…”
According to official statistics, refugees and IDPs make up 1.2 million, or 12.4% of the population of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
With the support of the Russian Language News Exchange