UNITED NATIONS - Azerbaijan has called on the United Nations and other international organizations to take a more active role in efforts to determine the fate of more than 4,000 people missing from decades of conflict with Armenia.
Shahriyar Hajiyev, first secretary at Azerbaijan’s permanent mission to the United Nations, made the appeal during an interactive dialogue with the chair of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances in the Third Committee of the 81st U.N. General Assembly session, according to Report and Vesti Baku.
Hajiyev said international organizations should assist searches, facilitate the exchange of information about missing people, strengthen forensic expertise and expand support for affected families within their mandates.
More than 4,000 Azerbaijanis remain registered as missing in connection with the former conflict, Hajiyev said. Azerbaijani authorities reported in October that the current total is 4,010 people, including 782 civilians.
Thirty-Two Mass Graves, 253 Sets of Remains
Hajiyev said 32 mass graves containing the remains of 253 people had been discovered since the conflict ended. He described the graves as further evidence of the deliberate killing of civilians and others protected under international humanitarian law.
Azerbaijani officials have separately said DNA and forensic work has identified 328 people who had been missing from the First Karabakh War. The remains of 273 of them have been returned to their families for burial.
Archives and Burial-Site Information Sought
Hajiyev said establishing the fate of the missing requires information about burial sites, access to archives and the collection of witness testimony. He called the transfer of relevant information both a legal obligation and a humanitarian responsibility that could help build trust in the post-conflict period.
Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed in Article 9 of their U.S.-brokered peace agreement, initialed in August 2025, to exchange available information, search for and return remains, and investigate disappearances as confidence-building and reconciliation measures.
The U.N. appeal followed an Oct. 20 demonstration by families of missing Azerbaijanis outside the European Parliament in Brussels. The families also called for wartime archives to be opened and information about burial sites to be released, as AZE.US previously reported.