In late February 1988, pogroms were perpetrated on the ground of national belonging in the city of Sumgait of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan.

On February 27, in the city of Sumgait located 20 kilometers from Baku, the Azerbaijani authorities started annihilating the Armenian population, robbing and eliminating the Armenians’ properties. The USSR authorities kept silent as the Azerbaijanis perpetrated the pogroms for three days, injuring, torturing and killing numerous people. Based on official statistics, after being mocked and tortured, 32 Armenian citizens of Sumgait were killed, hundreds received heavy injuries and became disabled.

The massacre of the Armenians of Sumgait was the first case of ethnic violence in the contemporary history of the USSR. Since the genocide of Sumgait was concealed and the international community was misinformed, the Azerbaijani authorities continued the powerful anti-Armenian propaganda, which led to the pogroms in Kirovabad and Baku, the exile of the entire population in the Shahumyan region and the imperative of war, in response to the demand of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to exercise the right to self-determination.

As a result of the pogroms of Armenians perpetrated by the Azerbaijani authorities in 1988-90, all members of the Armenian community of Azerbaijan (at least 500,000 people) were expelled. The pogroms were nothing but the response to the peaceful demonstrations of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh who were demanding that they exercise their constitutional right to self-determination.

On July 7, 1988, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning the Sumgait pogrom, stating the following: “Having regard to the historic status of the autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh (80 % of whose present population is Armenian) as part of Armenia, to the arbitrary inclusion of this area within Azerbaijan in 1923 and to the massacre of Armenians in the Azerbaijani town of Sumgait in February 1988, the deteriorating political situation, which has led to anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait and serious acts of violence in Baku, which in itself is a threat to the safety of the Armenians living in Azerbaijan, condemns the violence employed against Armenian demonstrators in Azerbaijan.”

The Azerbaijani authorities have never condemned the Sumgait pogroms or have expressed regret for the ethnic cleansing. On the contrary, Azerbaijan presents itself as the victim. By crudely distorting the facts, it presents the struggle of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh for existence as “aggression”, and the criminals having perpetrated the Armenian Genocide remain unpunished to this day.