Karabakh war leaves civilians shell-shocked and bitter

Heavy fighting has erupted in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as Russia tries to shore up a ceasefire agreed by Armenia and Azerbaijan last weekend.

Azerbaijan says it has destroyed missile sites inside Armenia which it claims were used to target civilian areas, and its president has said military operations are continuing.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but the enclave is controlled by ethnic Armenians.

The tree-lined main street of Ganja, Azerbaijan’s second-largest city, was bathed in morning sunlight and carpeted in glass. Just behind it a cluster of apartment blocks had been ripped open like tin cans.

Ganja lies 100km (62 miles) from the frontlines of Nagorno-Karabakh, but on Sunday – the first full day of a shaky ceasefire – that wasn’t far enough.

Azerbaijan accused Armenia of firing a ballistic missile at a residential part of Ganja. Armenia accused Baku of shelling civilians.

We found 60-year-old Nushabe Haiderova in her headscarf and slippers, with a cardigan over her night clothes. Her arms were slack with shock. “This is how I ran out, with only what I was wearing,” she said. “We barely escaped. It was horrible.”

We picked our way through the debris in her damaged home, to the bedroom where her grandchildren had been sleeping. Their injuries were minor. But now a new generation – on both sides – is being scarred by this decades-old conflict. At times it feels like a mirror image.