Azerbaijanis remove angel statues from Shushi cathedral

PanARMENIAN.Net - A video posted by social media users showcases a new act of vandalism by the Azerbaijanis.

In particular, the statues of angles on the gates of Ghazanchetsots Cathedral of Shushi have been removed, presumably after being destroyed. The fence around has been taken down as well, Karabakh Records said on Twitter.

Besides, scaffolding has been erected around the church itself, which was struck twice with precision-guided missiles by Azerbaijan during the Second Karabakh War.

Concerns about the preservation of cultural sites in Nagorno-Karabakh are made all the more urgent by the Azerbaijani government’s history of systemically destroying indigenous Armenian heritage—acts of both warfare and historical revisionism. The Azerbaijani government has secretly destroyed a striking number of cultural and religious artifacts in the late 20th century. Within Nakhichevan alone, a historically Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani forces destroyed at least 89 medieval churches, 5,840 khachkars (Armenian cross stones) and 22,000 historical tombstones between 1997 and 2006.