A new ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan to end three weeks of fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh region was again failing to hold on Monday, as ethnic Armenian forces and Azerbaijan traded accusations of renewed shelling.
The fresh ceasefire was agreed to on Saturday and was to have come into force at midnight on Sunday, but both sides immediately accused each other of violating the deal.
The ceasefire was the second brokered by Russia after one earlier this month that let the sides swap detainees and bodies of those killed in the clashes. Both attempts failed to halt the worst fighting in the South Caucasus since the 1990s.
The Nagorno-Karabakh authorities have said Azeri forces were shelling their positions in northern and southern areas of the line of contact that divides them. Meanwhile, the Azeri defense ministry said Armenian forces had shelled its positions in the Garanboy, Terter and Aghdam regions of Azerbaijan overnight and the Agjebedin region was shelled on Monday morning.
The new ceasefire was announced on Saturday after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov talked to his Armenian and Azeri counterparts by telephone and called on sides to observe the truce he mediated a week ago.
Baku said on Saturday that 60 Azeri civilians had been killed and 270 have been wounded since the fighting flared up on September 27. It has not disclosed its military casualties. Officials of Nagorno-Karabakh said 710 of its military personnel and 36 civilians were killed.
The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned "all attacks on populated areas" in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh zone of conflict. He described the tragic loss of civilian lives, including children, from the latest reported strike on Azerbaijan's second-largest city as "totally unacceptable." The Saturday attack saw a missile hit a residential area of Ganja, killing 13 people, including children.
The UN chief reiterated that "indiscriminate attacks on populated areas anywhere, including in Stepanakert and other localities in and around the immediate Nagorno-Karabakh zone of conflict," were likewise totally unacceptable. He noted the latest announcement on the start of the humanitarian truce on Sunday and called on both parties to fully abide by this commitment and resume substantive negotiations without delay under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.
(With input from agencies)
