CHAREKTAR, Azerbaijan (Reuters) – Nonetheless carrying the camouflage fatigues through which he had fought towards Azeri forces every week earlier, Arsen, an ethnic Armenian, lit a fireplace on Saturday beneath his sister’s eating room desk within the small village of Charektar.

Because the flames took maintain with the assistance of strips of cardboard, he used a wood chair to smash the low-slung one-storey home’s home windows and mattress sheets to attempt to unfold the blaze, which quickly consumed the entire home.

“They are going to already be right here tomorrow morning. The Azeris. Screw them. Allow them to reside right here, if they will,” he mentioned, as the hearth acquired going.

Subsequent door, gray smoke was rising from what was left of his personal home.

Armenians are resorting to a scorched earth coverage because the clock ticks all the way down to a handover of territory to Azerbaijan beneath a Russia-brokered peace deal that adopted six weeks of combating between ethnic Armenian forces and Azeri troops over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas.

Nestled within the mountains, Charektar is a small village within the Kalbajar district of Azerbaijan, which borders Nagorno-Karabakh.

It’s internationally recognised as a part of Azerbaijan, however has been managed by ethnic Armenians since a warfare over Nagorno-Karabakh within the 1990s. On Sunday, the Azeris will return and take again management of the world.

Arsen, 35, who declined to provide his surname, mentioned he and different ethnic Armenians had no want to go away something helpful for the Azeris.

“They should construct their very own homes from scratch,” he mentioned.

Reuters reporters noticed six homes, round half the village, on hearth in Charektar on Saturday.

One man, who refused to provide his title, mentioned Armenians have been carting off all the things they might as vehicles close by loaded up with family possessions.

TEARS AND FEARS

Some residents of Armenia visited the world on Saturday to see it, probably for the final time, and witness the village’s burning.

One Armenian lady was in tears as she watched.

Story continues

Arsen mentioned he’d learnt of the peace deal from different fighters.

“They referred to as me and mentioned: Go dwelling and take all the things you have got. They (the Azeris) ought to enter the area by the fifteenth (of November),” he recalled.

He and his spouse deliberate to go along with their 4 youngsters to Armenia and lease a flat there, he mentioned.

Requested why he and different villagers have been afraid to remain, he mentioned they feared the Azeris would kill them.

“Have you ever ever seen Armenians and the Azeris dwelling collectively?” he mentioned.

“We’re leaving all of the gravestones (of our relations) right here. Nightmare is just not the correct phrase for it.”

(Reporting by Reuters reporters, Modifying by Andrew Osborn and Timothy Heritage)