It was cold.
We arrived at the entrance of the building complex when it was starting to get dark. The occasional rain shower from the last two days had formed pools of mud in the dirt tracks leading up to the settlement. We had passed a deserted railroad along the way. In the distance one could see the early lights of the city. Looking from here though, with mud clinging to our heels, that life of warmth and comfort seemed like a distant dream. And thus, for the families here in the Sumgayit refugee settlement on the outskirts of Baku, the town in the distance was nothing more than a lost dream. A miserable ghost of their homes they left behind in Ngorgo-Karabakh -- a region of Azerbaijan that is currently under invasion by the Armenian army.
Sumgayit is one of the many refugee/IDP settlements scattered around the Azerbaijani country side. The settlements, hosting mostly IDP (Internally displaced people) populations, are often surrounded in rural poverty, and lack of infrastructure.
According to the latest UNHCR count there are 1 million refugees/IDPs in Azerbaijan. The region of Ngorgo-Karabakh officially belongs to Azerbaijan, and the UN has summoned Armenia on numerous occasions to withdraw its troops. After 8 years of painful status quo, peaceful resolution to the conflict is no where near.
Baku,Azerbaijan February 2001 |
