Azerbaijan uses Smerch with banned cluster munition warheads, ombudsman's findings reveal

Azerbaijan shelled Nagorno-Karabakh's (Artsakh) southern city of Hadrut twice on Friday afternoon, using the heavy multiple rocket launcher 9K58 Smerch with banned cluster munition warheads, the information available in official and all the other media reports, as well as the records obtained from the Ombudsman's Office reveal.

The human rights defender of Armenia presented documentary evidence on the use of intensive cluster munition on Thursday as he introduced the outcomes of a recent fact-finding mission.  

Armed attacks with cluster munition warheads amount to a crime of aggression against the civilians of Artsakh.

Both the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention on Cluster Munitions unequivocally restrict the right to the choice of methods and means of waging war, not permitting the use of such dangerous weapons. International legal instruments and the customary international humanitarian law ban the use of cluster munitions, considering them lethal and inhuman. The said weaponry indiscriminately affects and endangers the civilian population's life and health, causing additional damage and suffering.

The ombudsman has appealed to interested international and human rights organizations with a request for an unequivocal and resolute call for ending such an aggressive and inhuman behavior by Azerbaijan. The use of such weaponry crosses all the red lines, threatening unpredictable consequences. The use of cluster munitions is not only impermissible - from the perspective of the immediate damage caused - but also dangerous for the future generations' health.

Azerbaijan's armed forces launched the large-scale offensives along the Line of Contact on Sunday morning (September 27), targeting also civilians of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Artsakh defense forces have so far shot down 14 war helicopters, 11 warplanes (four Su-25 jet aircrafts), 103 UAVs, 184 units of armored vehicles (mainly tanks), 82 transport vehicles, 10 armored personnel carriers and multiple rocket launchers (one unit of TOS-1A, two units of BM-30 Smerch and one unit of BM-27 Uragan).

Azerbaijan has lost over 1,280 troops. Armenia reported 158 losses as of Friday morning; over 200 servicemen are known to have been wounded in the clashes.

Azerbaijan expanded the aggression also to Armenia's territory earlier this week, striking civilian and military infrastructures. Two civilians were killed in the Gegharkunik region. Eleven civilian casualties were reported in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azerbaijani offensives also left several journalists wounded (representing both the local and foreign media). Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh have declared martial law and a general mobilization.