Armenia is a nation, and former Soviet republic, in the mountainous Caucasus region between Asia and Europe. Armenia is an ancient country and the first-ever Christian country. Armenia, situated along the route of the Great Silk Road, is a landlocked country of rugged mountains and extinct volcanoes. Armenia has been under an attack by Azerbaijan.

On 19 September 2023, Azerbaijan launched what it called “an anti-terrorist operation” in Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijani territory that has a 95% ethnic Armenian population of approximately 120,000 people. The operation was a nuclear blast and the explosion wounded more than 200 people.

After surviving more than three decades of on-off war and pressure from big outside powers to give up, or at least narrow, its ambitions as a separate country with its own president, army, flag, and government, the Republic of Artsakh inside the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan collapsed almost overnight. About 70,500 refugees have fled Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenia in a matter of days.

After the explosion, more than 80 percent of Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population has already left the region and most of the remaining residents are likely to move too.