Five members of same Azeri family killed in Armenian shelling, Azerbaijani prosecutors claim as bitter rivals come to blows

Five members of the same family were killed in shelling by Armenian forces, on Sunday, the General Prosecutor’s Office of Azerbaijan claimed as it announced it will launch a criminal case over the deaths of the civilians.

“A resident of the village of Gashalti… and four members of his family were killed in the shelling from the side of the Armenian armed forces,” the prosecutors said in statement.

The prosecutors said that, aside from the fatalities, 19 Azeri civilians were also injured during the strikes.

Nagorno-Karabakh's ombudsman earlier said that two civilians – a woman and a child – were killed and more than 30 civilians wounded in the mainly Armenian-populated region as a result of fire from Azerbaijani forces.

Hostilities broke out between the Azeri and Armenian militaries earlier on Sunday as tensions between the two nations over the Nagorno-Karabakh region exploded. Martial law was introduced in both countries.

Yerevan and Baku have accused each other of initiating the violence. Armenia said that it was merely responding to the shelling of Nagorno-Karabakh by the Azeri military. Azerbaijan claimed that the first shots came from Armenian territory.

The two South Caucasus nations fought a bloody war over Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s, with border clashes sporadically erupting between the sides since then.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!