Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Hits Major Cities of Stepanakert and Ganja

Azerbaijan said Sunday that two civilians had been killed in shelling on the southern town of Beylagan, where a journalist working with AFP saw residents picking through the rubble of destroyed homes.

"I was baking bread when I heard explosions, I opened the door and saw that bombs were falling right into the yard," said one woman, showing journalists the blown-out windows and partially collapsed roof of her home.

Praying for peace

In Armenia's majority-Christian capital Yerevan, residents gathered in churches for services Sunday to pray and light candles.

"I came to ask God for peace, for our country and our soldiers," Aytsemik Melikyan told AFP outside the Saint Sarkis Church.

Russia, the United States and France — who co-chair a mediation group that has failed to find a political resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict — have called for an immediate halt to the fighting.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed concern over "the increase of casualties" among civilians in a call with his Armenian counterpart Sunday.

Karabakh's declaration of independence from Azerbaijan during the collapse of the Soviet Union sparked a war in the early 1990s that claimed 30,000 lives.

Talks to resolve the conflict have made little progress since a 1994 ceasefire agreement. 

(Writer: Herve Bar)

Source: http://u.afp.com/3zBo