Sumgait pogrom
Sign in to savepogrom that targeted the Armenian population of the seaside town of Sumgait in Soviet Azerbaijan in late February 1988
Key facts
- Date
- February 27 – March 1, 1988
- Target
- Local Armenian population
- Attack type
- Murder , rape , riot
- Deaths
- 32 (official Soviet data), 200+ (Armenian sources)
- Injured
- Unknown
- Perpetrators
- Azerbaijani mobs
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- pogrom
- Part of
- First Nagorno-Karabakh War
- Located in
- Sumgait
- Location
- Sumgait
- Number of deaths
- 32
Show 3 more facts
- start time
- 1988-02-27
- target
- Armenians
- end time
- 1988-03-01
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~27 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Ethnic Azerbaijanis carried out a pogrom against the Armenian population of the town of Sumgait, in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, in February 1988. The pogrom took place during the early stages of the Karabakh movement. On February 27, 1988, mobs of Azerbaijanis formed into groups and attacked and killed Armenians on the streets and in their apartments; widespread looting occurred, and a general lack of concern from police officers allowed the violence to continue for three days.
On February 28, a small contingent of Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) troops entered the city and unsuccessfully attempted to quell the rioting. More professional military units entered with tanks and armored personnel vehicles one day later. Government forces imposed a state of martial law and curfew and brought the crisis to an end. The official death toll released by the Prosecutor General of the USSR was 32 Armenians, although other estimates reach up into the hundreds of victims.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Sumgait pogrom” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.