Stepanakert residents alarmed by machine gun shooting near Shusha

On the evening of July 13, a shooting from machine guns near Shusha continued for an hour. It was heard in Stepanakert and caused anxiety among city residents, local people said. They called on the authorities and Russian peacekeepers to respond to the incident.

Today, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of Azerbaijan reported about two cases of shelling attacks on the Azerbaijani positions near the city of Shusha (the Armenian name is Shushi, – note of the “Caucasian Knot”). According to the Azerbaijani MoD, “illegal Armenian armed detachments” used machine and submachine guns to fire from the part of the territory of Azerbaijan where Russian peacekeepers were temporarily deployed.

“Summertime, children are playing in the yard, and suddenly we’ve heard a shooting ... It was clear that attackers were using a large-calibre machine gun. The children were very frightened and hid in their homes. A pregnant woman felt bad,” said Zhanna Arzumanyan, a resident of Stepanakert.

The woman has expressed her dissatisfaction with the fact that the authorities, according to her, are not responding to the incident.

The shooting at the Shusha-Gaybalishen section was “another provocation,” political analyst Zhirair Azizyan suggested. “The goal of the Azerbaijani side is clear: to force the population to leave their homeland ... However, one must not succumb to provocations, and, no matter how difficult it may be, we must firmly stand on our land at any cost,” the political analyst said.