Refugees, displaced persons and asylum seekers in Armenia

Abstract

Armenia first came to know the painful phenomenon of the refugee and IDP population in the course of its recent history, in 1998. It was at the end of this year that people escaping from the Armenian pogroms in the Azeri city of Sumgant arrived in Armenia. Given the deepening interethnic conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh, the refugee problem further intensified, resulting in an inflow that became massive in scope. From 1988-1991, Armenia received a total of more than 360 thousand refugees from Azerbaijan, not only of Armenian nationality but also of minority nationalities who had been living in the territory of Azerbaijan. At the same time, because of the sharp increase in interethnic distrust and tension from 1989-1991, approximately 170 thousand ethnic Azeris who had been living in Armenia were forced to flee the country.