Victims of Hate

Carol Guzy

The Washington Post

Agdam, Azerbaijan,Endless suffering and death of civilians as a result of the increasingly fierce fighting in the bloody ethnic conflict over the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh inside Azerbaijan. Agdam is an Azeri town on the border of war-torn Nagorno-Karabakh. It has been flooded with refugees fleeing the bullets and shelling of their villages. Women weep and scratch the skin from their faces in mourning for their dead loved ones. A new shipment of crude wooden coffins arrives at the mosque, awaiting more victims of the ethnic hatred from the nationalistic feelings unleashed with the breakup of the former Soviet Union. Villagers speak of a time when Azeris and Armenians lived side by side, ate at the same table. But memories of peace seem far away, fading more with each fresh grave. Azeri relatives of Maris Khatveldinov,20 yr. old killed by a sniper while feeding cows, weep in grief. Their village is the site of conflict.

Carol Guzy, "Victims of Hate ," in POYi Archive, Item #20427, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/20427 (accessed April 20, 2025).