THE HORROR OF THE NIGHT: I WITNESSED THE GENOCIDE.
From the diary of Khojaly inhabitant, Shaiq Qurbanov

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It was towards evening of February 25. Those hard days had made people really closer to one another. All were frightful. Inhabitants were calling for help opening their hands to the sky in horror saying “God, help us”. There came a sudden heard of shootings. Shooting sounds started first to increase from airport side later from Mehdikend. I counted the shooting directions: They were shooting from exactly 9 directions. I ran home. My son Ruslan was awoken. He said: “Dad, I am scared” running to me. Our neighbor Firengiz came to us in horror. “What are you standing for? Take the children and let’s go to the basement. Don’t you see how the damned are shooting?” We got really scared, Zehra, Imran, aunt Firangiz, uncle Latif, Zakir, Nasiba, my wife Besti, Ruslan and Zaur went down to the basement. Nearly 500 people assembled in the basement in about half an hour. Most of them were women and children, and the men were standing next to the door waiting for help. We had no weapons to defend ourselves.

The shooting bullets were like a rain. All around were in panic, people were running around without knowing what to do. The scream voices coming from older Khojaly side was approaching. I saw about 2000 people came out from among the houses. When I asked where they were going. They answered that the Armenians had entered the village. They wanted to go towards mountains to Aghdam through the forest. I hailed the people in the basement. We also joined the survivors.

We somehow could get out of the village. We reached the river soon. The weather was very cold. We didn’t have any other choice; we did have to cross the river. I took off my shoes and crossed the river. But most of the people just jumped into the water, because there was no time. Then we started to climb the opposite mountain. All were asking one another: “Who knows the way?” But no one knew the way. When we reached down to the road, we waited everyone to come. After all assembled we started the way. Nakhchivanik road was being seen. We started to go ahead in that direction. Suddenly we saw armored carrier appear on the road. The armored carrier started to shoot at people standing between two hills. We couldn’t find place to hide, everywhere was shrubbery. We could somehow escape and crossed to other side. After a little while a police car stopped in front of us. They were Armenians. As they got off the car started to shoot at us. People were thrown about and running. At this time another armored carrier stopped in front us and started to shoot at us again. I could hardly take the children and jumped into the valley. I saw grandma Gullu and Shohret lying right next to me. I tried to talk to them but they didn’t say anything. When I looked at them attentively I saw blood all around them. They were dead. Nasibe and Zohre also wanted to run to the valley I was hiding in. But suddenly an armored carrier appeared in front of them, turned its tube towards them and shot. They both died in blood. I fainted when I saw that view.

It was heavily snowing. We again heard shooting sounds. We saw three people on the opposite hill. They were shooting and speaking our language. I took the child’s hat and waved to them.

- Hey, Brother, don’t be afraid. It’s us, get out of there.

We happily got out of that valley. When we looked at the valley, we saw hundreds of people lying on the ground. We thought they were hiding, but when we approached them, saw that they were all dead. It was impossible to move among the corpses.

The next day we went to carry the dead bodies. The hills looked bright red. The dead bodies were countless. There were a lot tortured ones among them. One of the corpses didn’t have a head on the body; the other had steel rope over his neck; and some others didn’t have legs, arms, eyes and other parts of body. Each of them had been killed with different tortures.

I am one of the live witnesses of genocide happened to Khojaly population. I won’t be able to forget this horror till the end of my life.