😔 Satellite
imagery confirms that the regime demolished the church in Artsakh’s
former capital city of Stepanakert.
The sustained
threats to Armenian religious and
cultural heritage across Artsakh
(also known as Nagorno-Karabakh) have reached a new level following
reports that the Azerbaijani regime has razed another prominent
church in the region.
Satellite imagery
obtained by Caucasus
Heritage Watch (CHW) confirmed that the Holy
Mother of God Church, which stood in the former capital city of
Stepanakert, was demolished within the last eight weeks.
The Artsakh Tourism
and Cultural Development Agency shared the news of the church’s
destruction on social
media on Tuesday, April 21, only three days
before the 111th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Though the
agency did not share photos of the demolition in its notice, CHW’s
researchers were able to pinpoint supporting photographic evidence
within a day by pulling images from the Sentinel-2 satellite from
March 3 and April 2.
“Higher resolution
imagery will provide a clearer picture in the coming weeks,” the
group of scholars said in a statement. “CHW will also continue
working with satellite image providers to try to provide greater
resolution on the timing of the destruction.”
Unlike the
centuries-old churches and burial grounds that have been damaged,
appropriated, or destroyed by the Azerbaijani regime since the forced
displacement of over 130,000 Armenians in
September 2023, the Holy Mother of God Church was consecrated
in 2019 after 12 years of construction. During
the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, the church
served as a bomb shelter amid the Azerbaijani
bombardment of Stepanakert.
Scholars have warned
that Azerbaijan’s targeted destruction of these sites, having
accelerated since the swift and deadly 2023 takeover of the Artsakh
region, amounts to “cultural
genocide.”
News of the latest
demolition comes shortly after the resignation of the Armenian
Genocide Museum-Institute Director Edita Gzoyan at the request
of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
While accompanying United States Vice President JD Vance and his wife
for a visit to the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial complex in Yerevan last
February, Gzoyan reportedly presented Vance with a book about
Artsakh, which Pashinyan interpreted as a “security issue.”
“On my
instructions, yes, I asked her to write a resignation letter. I
considered it a provocative act, contrary to the foreign policy
pursued by the government,” Pashinyan reportedly said at a
briefing.
In his campaign for
reelection coming up on June 7, Pashinyan, who has long
been blamed for the dissolution of the
33-year-old autonomous state, has repeatedlyreiterated
that further dialogue surrounding Artsakh threatens the 2025 peace
agreement in which Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to recognize each
other’s (newly established) territorial integrity. On April 20,
Pashinyan most recently emphasized that the “Karabakh
topic,” as in the push for
negotiating the ethnic Armenian population’s right of return to the
region, has been closed for the sake of peacekeeping.
This Friday, April 24,
institutions and individuals around the world commemorated the
victims of the Armenian Genocide, the mass killing of 1.5 million
Armenians under the Ottoman Empire in 1915, which the governments of
Turkey and Azerbaijan continue to deny to this day.
Armenian
genocide commemorations continue to see the burning of Antichrist
Turkish and Azerbaijani flags due to ongoing disputes and Turkey's
denial of the genocide.
The Armenian Genocide – the systematic and premeditated killing of
over 1.5 million Armenians – was perpetrated by the genocidal
Islamic regime of the Young Turks in various regions of the Ottoman
Empire beginning in 1915 during WWI.
👹Brothers in Genocide: The Young Turks = Hitler Youth = Qerro Oromo
Youth (Ethiopia)
Why on earth is
America allowing 'the Young Turks' network, named after a regime in
Turkey that committed the Armenian genocide, to operate?
The Young Turks
Led the Armenian Genocide. But the hateful Show in America ‘The
Young Turks’ is allowed to use that name? Mind-boggling!
If a group
decided to call themselves ‘the Young Nazis’, and pitched
themselves as a disruptor or anti-establishment news outlet, people
would be rightly outraged, Unthinkable!
Armenians in the U.S. were calling for the popular left-wing news
show The Young Turks to change its name, saying it acts as a painful
reminder of the Armenian Genocide.
April
24, 2026 – Armenian and Ethiopian
Christians commemorate the 111th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
and honors the memory of those lost during this tragedy. This day
marks a devastating milestone that began in 1915, when the mass
arrest of Armenian leaders signaled a horrifying shift from state
persecution to a systematic campaign of total destruction. The scale
and systematic nature of these atrocities were so unprecedented that
they reshaped our understanding of mass violence, standing as one of
the first modern examples of genocide.
The genocide
began on April 24, 1915, when Ottoman authorities arrested and
detained hundreds of Armenian community leaders and intellectuals in
Constantinople, initiating a broader campaign of imprisonment,
deportation, and mass killing across the empire. Armenian men were
subjected to forced labor and summary executions, while women,
children, and the elderly were driven on “death marches” into the
Syrian desert. Deprived of food, water, and protection, hundreds of
thousands died from exhaustion, starvation, and systematic violence.
Ottoman
authorities, supported by auxiliary forces, carried out the majority
of the persecution and mass killings. Beyond the immediate
atrocities, the campaign involved a deliberate effort to eliminate
the Armenian presence from their ancestral lands. This included the
systematic confiscation of private and communal property—including
homes, businesses, and farms—and the widespread destruction of
cultural and religious heritage. Thousands of churches and schools
were desecrated or repurposed in an effort to eliminate the
historical footprint of the Armenian people, contributing to the
enduring displacement of the global Armenian diaspora.
Historians
estimate the number of Armenian Christians who lost their lives to be
between 1,000,000 and 1,800,000, representing approximately 70% of
the Armenian community in the region at that time. The magnitude and
brutality of these killings served as a primary motivation for the
Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin to coin the term "genocide."
His efforts ultimately contributed to the 1948 UN Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which remains a
cornerstone of the global framework for preventing mass atrocity
crimes.
More than a
century later, the pursuit of universal recognition and historical
justice remains a global imperative. Recognition by more than 30
states and several international bodies reflects an ongoing effort
toward truth and accountability, while highlighting the risks of
silence in the face of mass violence.
Ethiopian
Christians stand in solidarity with the Armenian community worldwide
as we honor the memory of the victims and the resilience of the
survivors. we Ethiopians understand that universal recognition of
these events serves as a barrier against dangerous revisionist and
denialist narratives, strengthening the crucial processes of truth,
transitional justice, and remembrance that foster resilient
societies. Recognition of the Armenian Genocide remains essential for
maintaining historical accuracy and for supporting wider efforts to
prevent future mass violence.
The Armenian
Genocide (1915–1917) and the Genocide in Tigray, Ethiopia
(2020–2022) are often compared due to patterns of systematic
violence, ethno-religious targeting,.the use of forced starvation,
rape as a weapon of war, displacement and Antichrist Turkey's
involvement in both genocides.
👹 Antichrist
Turkey’s Jihad against The World’s 1st & 2nd Christian
Nations of Armenia & Ethiopia
