Hayk Mamijanyan, head of the I Have Honor parliamentary faction, addressed the issue of Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan and the former political and military leadership of Artsakh during a plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
He urged PACE members “not to leave Armenian captives alone with a dictator,” Sputnik Armenia reports.
“Since the closure of the Red Cross office in Baku, the families of hostages, and we ourselves, have no information about our compatriots’ condition. You may say this is about big politics, conflict, treaties, and so on. But it isn’t. Тhese are human lives, human tragedies. There are reports of suicide attempts and hunger strikes among detainees. This is a great shame, and yet we don’t even know the exact number of our brothers held illegally in Azerbaijan. Some of them may no longer be alive,” Mamijanyan said.
He appealed to the PACE President, the Council of Europe Secretary General, and national delegations to send their ambassadors to Baku to visit the prisoners, emphasizing that such a step would demonstrate that Europe still believes in humanitarian principles.
According to the latest official data from Armenia’s Investigative Committee, Azerbaijan has confirmed holding 23 Armenian prisoners, 17 of whom were captured in 2023. Among them are former political and military leaders of Artsakh.
At the same time, the Armenian side has documented 32 missing persons since the 2020 war, a figure Baku denies. The Center for International and Comparative Law estimates the real number could be as high as 80.
