The 19 teenagers had travelled to Armenia to attend a robotics course. Like more than a thousand other Karabakh residents, they were unable to return home due to the road blockade that began on December 12.
The Azerbaijani side eventually agreed to let Russian peacekeepers escort the schoolchildren back to Karabakh. However, a Russian military convoy transporting them was reportedly made to stop and wait for hours at the blocked section of the sole road connecting Karabakh to Armenia.
According to Karabakh officials, masked Azerbaijanis forced their way into two military trucks to film the children seated there before letting the convoy proceed to Stepanakert. The children were intimidated by the intrusion, with one of them fainting as a result, the officials said.
One of the children and a Karabakh official who accompanied their group on the trip to and from Armenia confirmed that on Wednesday.
“As soon as we stopped they started shouting and we got scared at that point,” the 13-year-old Astghik told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Then when the shouting stopped for a moment they got into our vehicle.”
She said that she and her girlfriends then cuddled up together in the back of the vehicle.
Azerbaijan’s government-controlled media outlets circulated overnight videos of the visibly scared children, many of them covering their faces with their hands, in a bid to substantiate Baku’s claims that the Lachin Corridor is not blocked.
Karabakh leaders insisted that the incident on the contrary proved that the road remains closed to civilian traffic. They strongly condemned the Azerbaijanis’ actions.
“This impudent behavior of the agents of the Azerbaijani government is an arbitrary and illegal interference in the private life and psychological integrity of children,” Karabakh’s human rights ombudsman, Gegham Stepanian, said in a statement.
“The ethnically motivated hatred of Azerbaijanis towards Armenians knows no boundaries, targeting even minors,” he charged.