The Armenian National Committee of Australia has appealed to Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne, requesting emergency aid from the Australian Government to assist in alleviating the stress placed on Armenia due to it facing a full-scale humanitarian crisis.

On September 27, 2020, Azerbaijani forces launched large-scale air and artillery strikes along their entire line-of-contact with the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh), a self-determined state made up of indigenous Armenians in the South Caucasus. This war escalated over the ensuing months to include non-stop shelling of Stepanakert, Artsakh’s capital of 50,000 civilians, as well as many other civilian populated villages. As a result of Azerbaijan’s Turkey-backed and Islamist terrorist-fuelled military aggression, and subsequent occupation of what are ancestral Armenian lands, over 50,000 Nagorno Karabakh civilians presently find themselves displaced and in asylum within the borders of the Republic Armenia, resulting in a significant socio-economic toll on a country already dealing with an extended and debilitating outbreak of Covid-19.

The Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU) has elaborated on all factors in its appeal to the Australian Government to provide critical emergency aid to address the growing humanitarian crisis in Armenia.

ANC-AU Executive Director, Haig Kayserian, said that the Armenian-Australian community looks forward to Australia’s exemplary assistance for Lebanon following the Beirut Blast being extended to Armenia, which is facing its own crisis.