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  • 21 Aug, 2019

  • By, Wikipedia

Sığnaq

Sighnag (Azerbaijani: Sığnaq) or Sghnakh (Armenian: Սղնախ) is a village in the Khojaly District of Azerbaijan. The village had an ethnic Armenian-majority population prior to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, and also had an Armenian majority in 1989.

History

During the Soviet period, the village was a part of the Askeran District of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. After the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, the village was administrated as part of the Askeran Province of the breakaway Republic of Artsakh. The village was captured by Azerbaijan on 9 November 2020 during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.

In early July 2021, satellite images released by Caucasus Heritage Watch, a watchdog group made up of researchers from Purdue and Cornell, revealed that an Armenian cemetery dating back to the eighteenth century was bulldozed in order to make way for a new road. This makes it the "second historic cemetery destroyed along the new Fuzuli-Shusha road, after Mets T’agher/Böyük Tağlar."

Historical heritage sites

Historical heritage sites in and around the village include the 19th-century church of Surb Astvatsatsin (Armenian: Սուրբ Աստվածածին, lit.'Holy Mother of God'), a 19th-century cemetery, and a spring monument built in 1949.

Demographics

The village had 251 inhabitants in 2005, and 292 inhabitants in 2015.

References

  1. ^ Hakob Ghahramanyan. "Directory of socio-economic characteristics of NKR administrative-territorial units (2015)".
  2. ^ Андрей Зубов. "Андрей Зубов. Карабах: Мир и Война". drugoivzgliad.com.
  3. ^ "Daha 23 kənd işğaldan azad edildi". report.az (in Azerbaijani). 9 November 2020.
  4. ^ "ALERT:CHW confirms the destruction of an Armenian cemetery in the village of Sghnakh/Sığnaq, as first reported by Monument Watch...." Twitter. 2 July 2021.
  5. ^ "The Results of the 2005 Census of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic" (PDF). National Statistic Service of the Republic of Artsakh.