USAID Administrator Power and Acting Assistant Secretary of State Amb. Yuri Kim arrived in the Republic of Armenia on September 25, 2023 to conduct a needs assessment of the situation of the thousands of Armenian refugees who were ethnically cleansed from their historic, indigenous lands in Artsakh/Nagorno Karabakh at the hands of the genocidal regime of Ilham Aliyev, and have found refuge in the Republic of Armenia.

On September 26, 2023, following her visit to a processing center in Goris (in the Syunik province of the Republic of Armenia), Administrator Power traveled to Kornidzor and held a press conference with local and international media.

“Given the scale of the needs that the people of Nagorno Karabakh are facing today, I am announcing that the United States will provide $11.5 million in humanitarian assistance. This assistance will be used to provide everything from food to psycho-social support, given the grave psychological wounds that so many are carrying,” said USAID Administrator Power on Sept. 26, 2023.  

Aleppo-NGO, a Yerevan based humanitarian organization which has supported refugees and other vulnerable groups from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Nagorno Karabakh between 2013 and 2023, has assessed a preliminary funding requirement of approximately $3 Billion over the next 4 years to fully integrate the 120,000 Artsakh Refugees projected to arrive to Armenia in the coming days and weeks. See table below by Aleppo-NGO

Although the Republic of Armenia will carry the lion’s share of the responsibility to protect the rights of Artsakh refugees in Armenia and ensure their full integration, the international community led by the United States, European Union, and the United Nations (including UNHCR, UNICEF, WHO, WFP, and other agencies) are required to share the burden of the responsibility to protect Artsakh refugees by contributing $1.5 Billion (50%) in humanitarian relief, economic development, and other forms of assistance over the course of the next 4 years.

Background:

Following 282 days of an illegal blockade of Nagorno Karabakh/Artsakh, on September 19, 2023, Aliyev’s genocidal regime launched a full-scale offensive against the 120,000 defenseless Armenians of Artsakh under the watchful eyes of the Russian “Peacekeepers” and the international community led by the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations.

Within 36 hours, Azerbaijan bombarded the city of Stepanakert and other regions of Artsakh, killing more than 200 Armenians (including children, women, and elderly), wounding 400, displacing more than 10,000 from their homes, and forcing tens of thousands more to hide in basements and bunkers without food, water, heating, and electricity.

With nothing but hollow statements issued by the international community for the past 9 months and Azerbaijan’s unrelenting genocidal campaign killing and terrorizing the 120,000 civilians of Artsakh, a ceasefire declaration was adopted on September 20, setting in motion the Final Solution of the Armenians of Artsakh—the ethnic cleansing of Armenians from their historical, indigenous lands where they had lived for 3 millennia.

On September 23, 2023, with its genocidal plan completed, Azerbaijan opened the illegally blocked Lachin Corridor for the first time in more than 9 months to allow movement in one direction—from Nagorno Karabakh to the Republic of Armenia, resulting in the arrival of more than 50,000 Artsakh refugees to Armenia as of September 27, 2023.

‘99.9% [of Artsakh Armenians] will leave our historic lands,’ said David Babayan, Former Foreign Minister of the Republic of Artsakh and 2023 ANCA Western Region Freedom Award honoree. “The fate of our poor people will go down in history as a disgrace and a shame for the Armenian people and for the whole civilized world.”