Photographs: Azerbaijani Villages Covered in Oil and Garbage, Aliyev's 'Eco-Activists' Silent

While Azerbaijan has closed the only road connecting Artsakh to Armenia and the outside world, the Lachin corridor, under the pretext of environmental issues—resulting in a humanitarian crisis for 120,000 residents—thousands of inhabitants in the Sabunchi area near Baku are being poisoned by oil and waste. This is reported by Armenpress.

However, the 'environmental activists' sent by the Azerbaijani authorities seemingly ignore the ecological problems arising right under their noses, or perhaps their intentions are different—to terrorize the peaceful population (in this case, that of Artsakh), while residents of Sabunchi are already terrorized by the waste from President Ilham Aliyev's oil refining factories.

One Azerbaijani journalist prepared a report from the scene titled 'Life in Sabunchi Poisoned by Oil and Garbage,' noting that residents in this area near Baku have long developed a sense that their homes are located in the center of active oil fields, which have turned into a dump. Nearby, there is a pond that takes up four hectares where residents dispose of garbage and household waste.

Local residents recount that during the summer, the terrible stench permeating the area makes it simply impossible to breathe in Sabunchi. It seems that autumn and winter should be a bit easier for the residents, but in reality, the situation worsens. 'Even a little rain causes flooding. The pond's channel is filled with garbage and waste. The same picture occurs after the snow melts. In autumn and winter, we just close our homes due to the unbearable conditions and stay with relatives at night,' explains one resident.

The journalist on-site described the situation in Sabunchi: 'Several children were playing near the oil-polluted pond before our eyes. When confronted with our surprised and questioning looks, locals gestured with their hands and said that they are always in danger. And it’s not just about the oil, which could ignite at any moment. The mud has made the dirt streets completely impassable,' the journalist notes.

Residents have lost hope that the authorities, who feed them with promises, will ever address the escalating problem in Sabunchi, and there's no question as to why the 'environmentalists' who closed the Lachin corridor are not holding protests to highlight this long-standing unresolved issue.