Day of national mourning
Description:
170 dead, about 400 wounded. Among them are peaceful citizens: young people, old people, women, children. There were no casualties among the soldiers. Such is the terrible result of the act of tragedy that took place on the streets of Baku on the night of January 20, 1990.
The introduction of troops and the declaration of a state of emergency were carried out on the basis of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, signed by Mikhail Gorbachev on the evening of January 19, 1990. The resolution was adopted on the basis of paragraph 14, article 119 of the Constitution of the USSR. There was no consent of the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR to introduce a state of emergency in Baku. The content of the resolution was brought to the people of Azerbaijan only 7 hours after the invasion of Baku. With the introduction of troops in Baku, a terrible, unprecedented crime began against the civilian population of the city and all of Azerbaijan. All civil and human rights of millions of people in Azerbaijan were violated in the country that signed the Helsinki and Vienna agreements.
The capture of Baku was carried out under the command of Defense Minister Yazov, the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB of the USSR, as well as regular units of the Soviet Army and Navy, using heavy military equipment, helicopters and warships. Troops, shelling the civilian population without warning, entered the streets of the city, both from the outskirts and from military units stationed within the city. Special atrocities of the military took place in the suburbs, where the population consists exclusively of persons of Azerbaijani nationality and where pogroms (allegedly one of the reasons for the invasion of troops) were in principle impossible.
In the course of a large-scale military operation, women, children and old people of different nationalities were killed by hundreds under tracks of military equipment and shelling from modern small arms with the use of bullets with a shifted center of gravity, prohibited by international agreements. Apparently, there is no need to explain that bullets and shells did not choose their victims based on nationality. On that tragic night, the servicemen, forgetting their mercy for the wounded, turned off power in a number of hospitals; in flurry of shots, volunteers were prevented from donating blood to hospitals. Even ambulances and medical personnel were shelled. Many seriously injured were brutally killed. In a number of places heavy military equipment was crushed cars along with people. There were cases of robberies, looting, acts of vandalism among military personnel. Wanting to hide the traces of their atrocities, the military authorities hid and burned the corpses of the dead. This is evidenced by hundreds of missing persons.
On January 20, in protest against the atrocities of the military, several hundred cadets of various nationalities of the Baku Combined Arms Higher Military School revolted, seizing part of the Salyan barracks with an ammunition depot in the central part of the city.
After learning about the intention of the military authorities to remove the bodies of those killed on warships, 50 civilian ships, including oil tankers, blocked the Baku Bay. They were systematically shelled by warships.
The city resembled a frontline strip. Over the city of 2 million, with oil and oil refining industries, circling military helicopters with missiles on board. Having seized food warehouses, the military prohibited the export of food to stores. There was no shortage of bread.
People died in hospitals due to lack of medicines, and Moscow did not allow their import into the republic, both from other regions of the country and from abroad.
On January 22, 1.5 million processions of Baku residents took place under the barrels of machine guns installed by the military on the roofs of buildings in memory of the innocently shot victims of aggression.
Baku accompanied his daughters and sons on their last journey: Azerbaijanis, Russians, Jews, and other nationalities.
In the mountain park there is an Alley of Shehids. Here are the graves of the heroic Azerbaijani daughters and sons who fought for the independence of Azerbaijan. The alley of martyrs is worshiped by the entire Azerbaijani people.