Azerbaijan commemorates memory of victims of 1918 genocide

BAKU (AA) - On March 31, Azerbaijan honors the memory of the victims of the mass massacre committed by Armenians and Bolsheviks in March 1918.

Up to 50,000 residents of the country became victims of the massacre, the events of 1918 are considered one of the bloodiest pages in the history of Azerbaijan.

Armenian gangs took advantage of the collapse of Czarist Russia and joined hands with the Bolsheviks, a revolutionary party that was committed to the ideas of Karl Marx.

According to Stepan Shaumian, the Bolsheviks commissar extraordinary for the Caucasus, admitted that 10,000 Bolsheviks and Armenians participated in the massacre of the Azerbaijani people.

From March 30 to April 3, 1918, the genocide carried out against the Azerbaijanis covered not only the current capital city of Baku but also many other regions, including Shamakhi, Guba, Khachmaz, Lankaran, Salyan, Hajigabul, Zangezur, Karabakh, and Nakhchivan.

Only after the arrival of the Islamic Army of the Caucasus, formed at the instruction of Ottoman defense minister Enver Pasha, the genocide was stopped.

The date of March 31 is annually marked in Azerbaijan as the Day of the Genocide of Azerbaijanis, the corresponding decree was signed by President Heydar Aliyev on March 26, 1998.