The 2020 shelling of Ghazanchetsots Cathedral took place prior to the Battle of Shusha on 8 October, when the Holy Savior Cathedral () of the city of Shusha, known as Ghazanchetsots Cathedral (, ), was struck twice by missiles, resulting in the collapse of a part of the roof. Armenia accused the Azerbaijani Armed Forces over the shelling.
History
The shelling took place on the 11th day of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a continuation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region dating from before the fall of communism. Shusha was held by the Republic of Artsakh, an ethnic Armenian polity since the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. In Azerbaijan, the loss of Shusha in 1992 was especially mourned as the city was the cultural centre of Azerbaijani poets, musicians, and composers. Prior to the war, the cathedral had been damaged in ethnic violence surrounding the 1920 Shusha massacre of Armenians and then used as storehouse in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic and in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, until Shusha fell to the Armed Forces of Armenia in 1992. The building was then restored in the 1990s by the Armenian Apostolic Church, which had built the church in the 1880s.
Shelling
As reported by HRW: "On September 27, Azerbaijan launched a military offensive that escalated hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia and the de-facto authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh". It began air and ground attacks across a number of Nagorno-Karabakh cities and settlements, including the City on Shushi: "Several attacks on Shushi were reported in the first days of fighting. By early October, many of its residents had fled, though some civilians remained, including men, women, and children".
HRW and Amnesty International confirmed reports by the Armenian side on the use of cluster munitions in populated areas of Shushi and other settlements of Kharabakh, resulting in civilian casualties. Intense shelling of civilian areas of the city was also reported by international media outlets: "At daytime, when we had half an hour without an air-raid siren, for a change, we could see the damage. The missiles of the Azerbaijani army kept hitting apartment buildings and clearly civilian targets" reported the German Bild correspondent.
The Cultural House of Shushi was severely damaged by an Azerbaijani missile attack, according to media reports at the time of the attack, civilians were sheltered in the basement of the building.
Shelling of the cathedral
The first shell fell on the dome of the church at 12:30 on 8 October, severely damaging the interior. Local media reported that adults and children were sheltering inside the church when the first explosion occurred, but no-one was injured. At 17:00 same day, as journalists were inspecting the damage, a second shell struck the building. Two Russian journalists were wounded by the second strike; one, the editor-in-chief of Segodnya, was critically injured and underwent surgery in Stepanakert. An Armenian who accompanied the reporters was lightly injured.
In its subsequent report HRW specified that "Multiple factors indicate that both attacks were directed at the church. The remnants found indicate that the weapons used were capable of being directed at a specific target". Furthermore, both strikes hit the same part of the roof with a difference of less than two meters.
Response
Armenia
Armenia's Foreign Ministry issued an official statement describing it as "another crime of the military-political leadership of Azerbaijan... this action fully fits into its policy of Armenophobia developed for decades. Azerbaijan, which has completely annihilated the Armenian cultural heritage in Nakhichevan and in other parts of the historical homeland of the Armenian people, now throughout the ongoing military aggression against Artsakh is trying to deprive Armenians of Artsakh of their homeland and historical memory". They also stated that "With these actions Azerbaijan replicates the behavior of its newly acquired allies, infamous international terrorist organizations that are responsible for the destruction of numerous historical-cultural monuments in the Middle East". Artsrun Hovhannisyan, spokesman of the defence ministry of Armenia, blamed the shelling on "enemy Azerbaijan".