Ongoing Projects: Karabakh: Մենք ենք մեր լեռները: NKR_044

June 15, 2013: BERDZOR/LACHIN, NAGORNO-KARABAKH- A young Syrian refugee from Aleppo watches her father pick mulberries outside of the guest house she and her parents are sharing with several other Syrian families in the unrecognized republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh, which in the Soviet Union was under the control of Azerbaijan, has been a de facto independent state since the 1988-94 Karabakh War in which its secessionist ethnic-Armenian population, backed by the Republic of Armenia, fought a war against the newly independent Azerbaijan, resulting in major population shifts as Azeri residents of Karabakh fled to Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenians fled Azerbaijan for the Republic of Armenia. While the war theoretically ended in 1994, hostilities occasionally flare up, and Karabakh's final status is far from settled, with Azerbaijan referring to it as occupied territory that it hopes to regain and Armenia controlling the only actual access to the republic. As a result, the movement of Syrian refugees into the territory, although voluntary on the part of the families rather than part of a state-run plan, has the potential to be extremely controversial. Photo by Scout Tufankjian/Polaris

June 15, 2013: BERDZOR/LACHIN, NAGORNO-KARABAKH- A young Syrian refugee from Aleppo watches her father pick mulberries outside of the guest house she and her parents are sharing with several other Syrian families in the unrecognized republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh, which in the Soviet Union was under the control of Azerbaijan, has been a de facto independent state since the 1988-94 Karabakh War in which its secessionist ethnic-Armenian population, backed by the Republic of Armenia, fought a war against the newly independent Azerbaijan, resulting in major population shifts as Azeri residents of Karabakh fled to Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenians fled Azerbaijan for the Republic of Armenia. While the war theoretically ended in 1994, hostilities occasionally flare up, and Karabakh's final status is far from settled, with Azerbaijan referring to it as occupied territory that it hopes to regain and Armenia controlling the only actual access to the republic. As a result, the movement of Syrian refugees into the territory, although voluntary on the part of the families rather than part of a state-run plan, has the potential to be extremely controversial. Photo by Scout Tufankjian/Polaris