Armenia says 2,317 servicemen dead after Karabakh conflict

Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia on Saturday said that 2,317 servicemen were killed in six weeks of clashes with Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region to date.

"To date, our forensic service has examined the corpses of 2,317 dead servicemen, including unidentified ones," Armenian health ministry spokeswoman Alina Nikoghosyan wrote on Facebook, recording an increase of nearly 1,000 deaths compared to the last confirmed death toll among Armenian fighters.

She wrote: “On behalf of all the staff of the Ministry of Health, we express our condolences to all the lost mothers, fathers and their relatives. We are sorry that we had to post like this.”

.

Meanwhile, Villagers in Nagorno-Karabakh set their houses on fire before fleeing to Armenia ahead of a weekend deadline that will see parts of the territory handed over to Azerbaijan as part of a peace agreement.

Fighting between the separatists backed by Armenian troops and the Azerbaijan army erupted in late September and raged for six weeks.

As per Al Jazeera, Six houses were on Saturday morning in the village of Charektar – on the border with the neighbouring district of Martakert, which is to remain under Armenian control.

“This is my house, I can’t leave it to the Turks,” as Azerbaijanis are often called by Armenians, said one resident as he threw burning wooden planks and rags soaked in gasoline into a completely empty house.

“Everybody is going to burn down their house today … We were given until midnight to leave,” he said.

On Friday, at least 10 houses were burned in and around Charektar.