Quba mass grave

The Quba mass grave is a mass grave site located in the town of Quba in northeastern Azerbaijan. It was discovered during the building of a stadium in April 2007.

Quba mass grave
Quba kütləvi məzarlığı
Details
Location
CountryAzerbaijan
TypeMass grave

Investigation

The mass grave

Once the burial site was uncovered, the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences dispatched a forensic expedition to the location. The expedition released its first forensics report on April 13, 2007, stating that the preponderance of commingled skeletal remains suggests that the people were first executed and then thrown into wells, 2.5 to 5 meters deep.[1] Gahraman Agayev, the leader of the forensic expedition, followed up on this by reporting the discovery of two main wells and two canals with human bones. The research has discovered the remains of more than 400 people belonging to different age groups in the grave. Of these, 50 belong to children, more than 100 to women and others mainly to elderly men. It has been established that along with Azerbaijanis the mass grave contains the remains of brutally murdered Lezgins, Jews, Tats and other ethnic groups living in Quba.[2] The names of 81 massacred Jewish civilians were found and confirmed.[3]

Reactions

In response to the mass grave discovery, Levon Yepiskoposyan, supervisor of Human Genetics at the Institute of Molecular Biology in the Armenian National Academy of Sciences and president of the Armenian Anthropological Society, and Hayk Kotanjian, President of the Association of Political Science at the Ministry Doctor of Political Sciences, sent letters urging the President of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, Mahmud Kerimov, to form a joint committee to examine the remains found. As of 2013, those letters have not received a response from Azerbaijani officials.[4]

Hayk Demoyan, the director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, has stated that no foreign experts have examined the human remains.[5]

Legacy

On September 18, 2013, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan inaugurated the Guba Genocide Memorial Complex dedicated to the memory of victims of March Days.[6]

In October 2013, a French Senate delegation headed by senator Nathalie Goulet visited the site[7] and a Kuwaiti government delegation has also visited the site.[8]

See also

References

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