The bloodiest genocide of XX century Khojaly tragedy was remembered.

An event with respect to the 26th anniversary of Khojaly genocide was held in Heydar Aliyev Center. The attendees of the memorial ceremony firstly viewed the exhibition of paintings and drawings dedicated to the genocide. Head of the Department for socio-political and humanitarian issues and Deputy Head of REP Ataya Osmanova opened the event organized in the hall of the Center, and a minute of silence was observed in respect to the victims of Khojaly genocide and those who sacrificed themselves for the integrity of our lands. Head of Gabala region Executive Power Sabuhi Abdullayev made an extended speech on the Khojaly genocide, which was committed by Armenians and was one of the most terrible crimes against our people. The Head of the REP said that the Khojaly genocide has entered into the history of Azerbaijan as one of the most terrible and tragical pages, our fellow citizens had been time to time expelled from the lands historically belonging to them, they had turned into refugees or internally displaced persons, and all those events had been accompanied by mass murders as a result of the ethnic cleansing and genocide policy continuously carried out by Armenians. Sabuhi Abdullayev noted that the bloody event, which took place in the night between 25th and 26th of February in 1992, was one of the heaviest and most serious crimes committed against not only Azerbaijani people, but all the humanity and the mankind, and that the Khojaly genocide is put on a level with the most terrible tragedies like Khatyn, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Songmi. The speaker said that 613 people were killed, 1000 people were disabled on that night, and mentioned that 106 of killed people were women, 63 were young children, 70 were elders. Bringing to the attention that Armenians had killed 8 families entirely, Sabuhi Abdullayev emphasized that 25 children had lost both of their parents, 130 children one of them, 1275 people had been taken hostage, and the destiny of 150 of them is not known yet. Drawing attention to the fact that the real political value had been given to that ethnical cleansing and genocide by the national leader Heydar Aliyev, the Head of the REP stressed that the Azerbaijan Parliament had adopted a resolution on being marked of February 26 as the Day of Khojaly Genocide in 1994. Noting that many countries of the world denounce the Khojaly tragedy as a genocide, Sabuhi Abdullayev said that the awareness campaign "Justice for Khojaly-Freedom for Karabakh" had been initiated by Leyla Aliyeva, the Vice-President of Heydar Aliyev Foundation, and that the 26th day of February had been decided to be marked as a “Memorial Day” in all member countries of the OIC at the meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and ISESCO held on May 17, 2008. He said that all necessary actions aimed at freeing our lands from the occupation had been taken by the President Mr. Ilham Aliyev, in accordance with the order signed by the Head of State on the restoration of Jojug Marjanli, the village freed from the occupation, the major reconstruction works had been carried out in the area in order for the civil people, who had being lived there historically, to turn back to their native lands, and that the day is not so far when all our IDPs would return to their homelands. Representative of Shusha Region Executive Power Ahad Hasanov, doctor of Gabala Treatment and Diagnostics Center, Kamal Mammadov displaced from Khojaly and others took part in the event. The participants spoke about the tragical results of the Armenians’ ethnic cleansing and genocide policy, the bloody terror acts committed against innocent people in Khojaly, and the large-scale actions of the country administration on acknowledgment of Khojaly genocide around the world. In the end, a literary and artistic composition prepared by Gabala Cultural Center was demonstrated.