Nagorno-Karabakh 'Azerbaijan won't be happy until we die in the streets'

For every meal, Hovig Asmaryan eats potatoes. "We fry them. And then we boil them," he said. "It's a healthy lifestyle for me and my family. We consume vegetables, walk on foot and get around by bike.

- Luke Harding

But it's by force." In his home city of Stepanakert a barter system has sprung up. "We have a fruit tree in the garden. I give fruit to my neighbours. They pass us carrots," he said.

Asmaryan lives in Nagorno Karabakh, an Armenian region in the territory of Azerbaijan, in the South Caucasus. It is home to about 120,000 ethnic Armenians. Supplies of basic foodstuffs, medicine and fuel used to arrive by lorry, dispatched from the Armenian capital, Yerevan, a bumpy five-hour journey along the mountainous Lachin corridor. Visiting relatives took the same route.

Last December, Azerbaijan blockaded the road, in effect putting the local Armenian population under siege. Red Cross vehicles were let through, and sick patients allowed out. But in April, Azerbaijan erected a new checkpoint, and on 14 June its guards blocked the road entirely after a skirmish with their Armenian counterparts on the Hakari Bridge on the border.

As a result Nagorno-Karabakh is now experiencing acute shortages. There is little food. Also lacking are essential medicines, hygiene products and baby formula, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Supermarkets are empty. Public bus services have stopped because of a lack of fuel. The city's rush hour no longer exists. Many districts are without water and electricity.

Residents say Baku's plan is clear: to starve them into submission so that, if and when the road reopens, they leave. It is, they say, a slow-motion genocide, with hunger used as a weapon. Azerbaijan denies there is a blockade and says it was forced to act after environmental violations. Its lawyers dismiss Armenia's claims.