In the summer of 2022, CHW documented the near-complete destruction of the village of Mokhrenes (Arm.) or Susanlyg (Azer.), in the Khojavend region (Arm. Hadrut), an area that had passed to Azerbaijani jurisdiction in 2020 following the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. Among the destroyed structures was an unassuming village church, St. Sargis, nestled into a hillside, its roof covered in wild grasses. It was constructed in the 18th or 19th centuries, repurposed in the Soviet years, then revived as a church in the 1990s and remained in active use until Armenians evacuated Mokhrenes.
But the demolition of St. Sargis does not appear to have been the last word in Azerbaijan’s intervention at the site. In our ongoing monitoring efforts, we have documented evidence of subsequent building activity, which we release to the public here. The new evidence raises questions about Azerbaijan’s response to CHW’s findings and the pressure on the government to abide by a decision of the International Court of Justice.
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