At Least 125 Killed in Explosion at Nagorno-Karabakh Fuel Depot

Armenia’s health minister said on Tuesday that at least 125 people had been killed in an explosion at a fuel depot in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan that was filled with ethnic Armenians rushing to leave the region after a military offensive by Azerbaijan last week.

The cause of the explosion, which produced a large fire that lit up the night sky near the region’s capital, Stepanakert, was not immediately clear. Witnesses in Nagorno-Karabakh reported that the blast had occurred as people lined up to refuel their cars.

More than 28,000 people have fled Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenia in the past week, part of a mass exodus that began after a sudden military offensive brought the enclave back under Azerbaijan’s control. The shift in power has raised fears of ethnic cleansing in a region where decades of interethnic hatred have fueled wars, population shifts, and atrocities.