Today, Azerbaijan commemorates the victims of the largest massacres in the history of the Azerbaijani people - the Day of the Genocide of Azerbaijanis. Between March 31 and April 3, 1918, the Dashnaks and Bolsheviks carried out mass killings of Azerbaijanis in Baku and other cities and villages. More than 40,000 people were killed back then.
107 years ago, Armenian Dashnaks and Bolsheviks committed unprecedented atrocities against the Azerbaijani population in Baku, Shamakhi, Guba, Karabakh, Zangezur, Nakhchivan, Lankaran, Ganja and other regions of the country, killing women, children and the elderly with particular cruelty, burning entire villages and expelling civilians.
After the October Revolution of 1917, a fierce political struggle began in Azerbaijan: the Musavat party sought to create an independent Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, and the Bolsheviks, who controlled Baku, represented by the Baku Council, tried to prevent the loss of such significant territories. At that time, Azerbaijan produced about 90% of the oil on the lands of the former Russian Empire, and the Baku Council had a directive from the Bolshevik leadership to keep Azerbaijani territories under control at any cost.
To defeat Musavat, the Bolsheviks decided to use force and, for this purpose, created a coalition with the Armenian radical nationalist party Dashnaktsutyun, built around Turkophobic and Islamophobic ideas. In fact, Dashnaktsutyun was an extremist and terrorist organization, since it set itself the task of the complete destruction of Azerbaijanis in the region with the subsequent proclamation of an Armenian state in the ethnically cleansed territories.
The genocide of Azerbaijanis lasted from March 31 to April 3, 1918. During this time, the Dashnaks and Bolsheviks killed 12,000 people in Baku, 8,000 people in Aresh, Goychay and Shamakhi districts, 7,700 people in Zangezur, 7,000 people in Shamakhi, 3,000 people in Nakhchivan and Sharur, 2,000 people in Guba.
The criminals not only killed people, but also robbed and burned populated areas. During the same four days the following villages were destroyed 211 Azerbaijani villages in the Erivan province, 150 Azerbaijani villages in Karabakh, 122 Azerbaijani villages around Guba, 115 Azerbaijani villages in Zangezur, 92 Azerbaijani villages in the Kars region, 58 Azerbaijani villages around Shamakhi.
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has shared a post on his social media accounts on 31 March - the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis.
A publication made by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry dedicated to the mourning date appeared on social networks.
"On March 31 - Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis, we honor and remember the tens of thousands of innocent Azerbaijanis who were brutally massacred by radical Armenian groups," Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said.
