The Joint Armenian Organization held a big protest in front of the Azerbaijani embassy in The Hague in memory of the victims of the pogroms in Sumgait and other Azerbaijani cities in 1988, the Organization reports.



The Deputy Director of Europe Department of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Adriaan Palm, met the delegation of the Joint Armenian Organization in the Netherlands. Reportedly, the traditional demonstration took place despite the extremely adverse weather conditions. Many Armenians protested against Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian policy.



According to the information, the delegation handed Palm a letter addressed to the Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders. During the meeting, the deputy director and the Armenian delegation discussed many important issues, including the last escalation of the Karabakh conflict.



In the letter, the Dutch government is asked to participate in the prevention of a large-scale war in the Karabakh conflict area and to make an effort in order to achieve the peaceful resolution of the conflict, whether on its own initiative, or at EU level. “First of all, this depends on the observance of the ceasefire, which is regularly violated by Azerbaijan and cannot be established without the presence of international observers,” the letter reads.



Besides, the authors of the letter also call on the Dutch government to condemn publicly the Azerbaijani aggression and the overt demonstration of racism towards the Armenians.



The delegation asked about the official Hague’s position on the Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin’s extradition from Minsk at the request of the Azerbaijani authorities because of his visit to Artsakh. The delegation also informed Palm about the recent Azerbaijani requests for three members of the European Parliament, who visited Artsakh as observers in the Constitutional referendum.



On 26-29 February 1988 in terms of actual complicity of local authorities and inaction of the USSR government mass pogroms of civilians were organized in Sumgait city of Azerbaijani SSR, accompanied with unprecedented brutal murders, violence and pillaging against the Armenian population of the city. Armenian pogroms in Sumgait were carefully organized. At the meetings, which began on February 26 in the central square, city leaders openly called for violence against the Armenians.



On February 27 protests which were attended by hundreds of rioters turned into violence. Armed with axes, knives, specially sharpened rebar, rocks and cans of gasoline and with the pre-compiled lists of apartments where Armenians lived the rioters broke into the houses, turning everything upside down there and killing the owners. In the same time, people were often taken out to the streets or to the courtyard for jeering at them publicly. After painful humiliations and torture the victims were doused with gasoline and burnt alive. On February 29 army troops entered Sumgait but without an order to intervene. Only in the evening, when the mad crowd began to attack the soldiers the military units took up decisive steps.

The exact number of victims of Sumgait pogroms is still unknown. According to official data, 27 Armenians were killed; however there is ample evidence that several hundred Armenians have been killed in the city in three days. There is also evidence that the riots were coordinated by the Azerbaijani KGB. Executioners of Sumgait were subsequently declared as national heroes of Azerbaijan.