20 dead in blast at fuel depot in Nagorno-Karabakh

An explosion at a fuel depot in zerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday left at least 20 people dead, local Armenian authorities said.

They added about 300 people were admitted to hospitals, dozens of them “still in critical condition”.

Thousands of ethnic Armenians had fled the breakaway region, after their fighters were defeated in a lightning military operation by Azerbaijan last week.

Baku has promised to protect the rights of the roughly 120,000 Armenians who call Karabakh home but few accept its assurances. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan blamed Russia for failing to ensure Armenian security.

The mass departure took place amid confusion and fear.

Washington and some Western allies condemned the Azeri hostilities, which have changed the contours of the South Caucasus, a patchwork of ethnicities crisscrossed with oil and gas pipelines where Russia, the United States, Turkey and Iran vie for influence._Agencies