Photos featuring war and life during a wartime

Photographer Areg Balayan lives in Karabakh. During the April war, he was called up. He left to fight on the front line – without his camera. But later, on 15 April, he got a day off from the service and had a chance to go home and take his camera with him.

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Whenever he had free time – such as when it was more or less calm and he was able to rest or sleep – Areg took photographs. That is how a series of his photographs under the name MOB (Military Mobilization) was created, which made him one of the winners of the Lens Culture Exposure Awards.

• For the first time since the 1994 truce, there was an armed clash on the contact line in the Karabakh conflict zone (on the night of 2 April 2016).  On 6 April, the Defence Ministries in Baku and Stepanakert reported that they had reached an agreement on the resumption of the ceasefire regime.

• According to official data, the number of Azerbaijani servicemen killed during the escalation of tension totals 31. Contrarily, the ‘Khazar Institute of Military Studies’ reports a different figure – 93. 

• Official data shows that the number of servicemen killed from the Armenian side was 92.

• The armed conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh took place from 1991 to 1994.  Since entering into a truce, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has existed as a de facto independent republic, unrecognized by any country in the world, including Armenia. Azerbaijan considers Karabakh and the adjacent areas, acquired during the war, as occupied territories and demands their return.

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