When Caroline Cox was appointed to the British House of Lords and granted the title of Baroness Cox, she wanted to use her privilege and role to become “a voice for people whose voices are not heard.”
Since her appointment in 1983 by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, she has been involved in various projects providing aid to people suffering in different parts of the world.
One of the significant endeavors she undertook was to relieve the suffering of Armenian Christians in Nagorno-Karabakh. This region is the subject of an ongoing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Ms. Cox said she first learned about the situation in the region at an international human rights conference held in Moscow after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and was asked there to lead an international delegation to the war-torn area of Nagorno-Karabakh.
When Armenia and Azerbaijan were incorporated into the Soviet Union in the early 1920s, Joseph Stalin, who was at that time in charge of dealing with non-Russian nationalities, made Nagorno-Karabakh an autonomous region within the soviet republic of Azerbaijan.
While people living in Nagorno-Karabakh are mainly ethnic Armenians who are Christians, Azerbaijan is predominantly inhabited by ethnic Azerbaijanis who are Muslims.
Armenia is considered the first country in the world to adopt Christianity, doing so in 301 A.D. Some of the oldest Christian churches and traditions in the world are in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, according to Ms. Cox.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, long unresolved tensions between Armenia-backed Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan intensified and erupted into a full-scale war.
Ms. Cox said the delegation she led to Nagorno-Karabakh walked across the border into Azerbaijan with no prior permission and carrying white flags.
“It was a bit risky,” she said, claiming it was necessary to get two points of view so the media would cover it.
“That was the first time, and I became so concerned about what was really happening to the people from Armenia in this little land of Nagorno-Karabakh. That began my engagement with that whole area.”
How Armenians Suffer in Nagorno-Karabakh
The war between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan that broke out in 1992 ended after two years with a ceasefire agreement that gave Nagorno-Karabakh de facto independence from Azerbaijan, “though its independence is not recognized by any UN member states,” according to Freedom House.“However, a third of Nagorno-Karabakh and some adjacent land came under Azerbaijani control in 2020 under a cease-fire agreement that ended a weeks-long conflict that year,” Freedom House stated.
Azerbaijan has recently increased its persecution of the Christians who live in Nagorno-Karabakh, according to Ms. Cox.
In December 2022, Azerbaijan cut off access to the road that links Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. Since it’s the only route by which essential goods such as medical supplies and food could come to the enclave, the blockage caused a lot of suffering to Armenians in that region, she said.
“I’ve seen a photograph of one man who died of starvation,” Ms. Cox said.
Then, Azerbaijan upped its aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh and began bombing Armenians in the region, according to the baroness.
“The Armenians really had to flee for their lives,” she said. “They could only carry with them what they could carry. They couldn’t take their possessions, they had to leave their homes, everything, and just flee into Armenia.”
More than 100,000 Armenians fled from Azerbaijan into Armenia, leaving their homeland, Nagorno-Karabakh, bereft, according to Ms. Cox.
She called this exodus “ethnic cleansing.”
The United Nations reported in October 2023 that between 50 to 1,000 ethnic Armenians may remain in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Armenia, which is neither big nor a wealthy country, now has to deal with this huge influx of people, Ms. Cox noted.
Another aspect of the conflict is that Azerbaijan has also captured and imprisoned innocent Armenians, she said. Some of them are prisoners of war from the previous war in 2020, some are civilians abducted and imprisoned recently, and some are leaders whom she knows personally.
Going Where Others Won’t Go
In 2004, Ms. Cox founded the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART) to “provide aid and advocacy for people suffering persecution and oppression in areas not reached by other major aid organizations either for political reasons or security reasons.”“The big organizations like the U.N.—I have great respect for them—but they can only go with permission of a sovereign government,” she said. “If a sovereign government is victimizing a minority in its own borders, doesn’t allow them, then they can’t go.
“We do spend quite a lot of our time going a bit unofficially; we work with local partners, and they’re the heroes and heroines.”
The primary security reason that prevents other aid organizations from entering a country is that an impacted area is within a war zone or conflict zone, and it’s dangerous to get there, according to Ms. Cox.
“But we do get where it may be politically incorrect and where it may be dangerous, and so a lot of our partners are in conflict zones in areas where they’re not supported by their national governments,” she said.
One of the significant achievements of HART’s local partners was the establishment of a rehabilitation center for people with disabilities inside Nagorno-Karabakh, according to Ms. Cox.
The center, developed by HART partner Vardan Tadevosyan, “became internationally renowned as a center of excellence,” according to Ms. Cox.
“People came around the world to see it,” she said.
After almost 25 years of operation, the center was forced to close in September 2023 because of Azerbaijan’s blitz military offensive, according to HART’s website.
“It was simply too dangerous for us to stay in Nagorno-Karabakh,” Mr. Tadevosyan, the Center’s founder and director, whom Ms. Cox called “a hero of peace,” said in a statement.
“We will reestablish the Centre inside Armenia as soon as we are able.”
HART is trying to raise money for a new rehabilitation center in Armenia that will replace the closed rehabilitation facility in Nagorno-Karabakh, according to Ms. Cox.
On the advocacy side, HART tries to encourage nations and to pressure groups and people who respect and cherish freedom and truth to call Azerbaijan to account for its annihilation of the Armenian existence in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave and its “threats to extend their role into Armenia itself,” she explained.
Aid and advocacy are closely intertwined, according to Ms. Cox.
HART also operates in other countries when humanitarian aid is needed, and people’s freedom and fundamental values need to be defended, such as the Middle Belt region in Nigeria, where Christians are being attacked, she said.
“That’s part of a Christian mandate and part of [HART’s] mandate,” Ms. Cox said.
