Genocide Watch has declared a genocide emergency amid Azerbaijan's aggression against Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), the organizations said Friday, October 23.

Genocide Watch is the Coordinating organization of The Alliance Against Genocide (AAG), an international coalition of organizations. Genocide Watch has three levels of Genocide Alerts. A Genocide Watch is declared when early warning signs indicate the danger of mass killing or genocide. A Genocide Warning is called when politicide or genocide is imminent, often indicated by genocidal massacres. A Genocide Emergency is declared when genocide is actually underway.

The organization considers Azerbaijan to be at Stage 9: Extermination and Stage 10: Denial, due to its denial of past genocide against Armenians, its official use of hate speech, and the current targeting of civilians in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).

Azerbaijan uses laser guided drones supplied by Turkey and Israel to target Armenian troops, villages and civilians. Azerbaijani military offensives against civilians are war crimes under the Geneva Conventions, the organization said.

"The establishment of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 began with the systematic extermination of the Armenian populations living in Azerbaijan and the provinces of Nakhichevan and Nagorno-Karabakh. From 1988 to 1990, Azerbaijani mobs robbed, beat, raped, and murdered ethnic Armenians in the towns of Sumgait, Baku, and Kirovabad. This campaign of terror caused the forced expulsion of nearly all Armenians living in Azerbaijan," Genocide Watch said.

"The Azerbaijani government under Ilham Aliyev denies any violence against Armenians and is also a denier of the 1915 Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire. Today, Azerbaijan denies displaced Armenians the right to return and forbids a person of Armenian heritage from entering its territory."

The organization said the U.N. Security Council should demand that Azerbaijan stop all offensive maneuvers against Artsakh and order a Chapter 7 “ceasefire” in the current conflict. The Security Council, it added, should impose an embargo on the sale of arms to Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan, with help from Turkey and Syrian and Libyan mercenaries deployed by Ankara, started a war against Karabakh (Artsakh) in the morning of September 27. The Armenian side has reported deaths and injuries both among the civilian population and the military. Foreign and local journalists too have been injured in Azeri shelling of towns and villages.