The Armenian Genocide is not a tragedy of the past, but a continuing process of erasure—through forced displacement, destruction of cultural heritage, and denial of return. In Artsakh, Azerbaijan has continued this pattern, which began in the Ottoman Empire, by ethnically cleansing the indigenous Armenian population, holding hostages, and staging sham trials to justify its actions. International institutions have failed to act, allowing these violations to continue unchecked. Recognizing the Armenian Genocide is not just about the past—it is about seeking justice and stopping a still ongoing process.
Hostages and genocides are widely discussed issues today, and unfortunately, Armenians have extensive experience with both. As a people who survived the 1915 genocide, when 1,5 million Armenians was massacred, and who faced continuous ethnic cleansing during Soviet rule in Nakhijevan, a historically Armenian land, where the Armenian population today is 0%. Armenian cultural heritage in these regions was systematically destroyed.
The same pattern repeated in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, where Armenians, as the indigenous people of the region, were forcibly displaced. Today, the world largely ignores Azerbaijan’s settler-colonial policies, including the looting of Armenian homesand destruction of cultural heritage.
Azerbaijanis have a slogan: ‘Two states, one nation.’ Apparently, it also means ‘Two states, one genocide’—a continuous genocide of Armenians.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan is instrumentalizing the trials of Armenian hostages to divert attention from its own crimes and the systematic deprivation of Armenians’ rights. While some other conflicts are widely discussed at the international level, the issue of Armenian hostages, the looting of Armenian houses in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the right of deported Armenians to return to their homes is not being discussed at all. This stark difference reflects more than just media bias, it is part of a larger pattern of erasure that has defined the Armenian experience for over a century. The world ignored the Armenian Genocide as it happened, and today, it ignores its continuation through the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh, the captivity of Armenian prisoners in Azerbaijan, and thedestruction of Armenian cultural heritage in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).
The forced displacement of over 120,000 Armenians from Artsakh in 2023 was not merely a political crisis; it was the latest phase of a genocide that has never truly ended. While international discussions of genocide often focus on events in isolation, the Armenian case reveals something far more insidious: genocide as a continuous process, one that relies not just on mass killing but on the erasure of a people from their geography, history, and global consciousness.
If we can tolerate the deportation of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh and view it as a solution to a long-standing conflict, despite the fact that Armenians were the majority population in this region for thousands of years, then similar “solutions” could be implemented elsewhere. The deportation of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, and the disregard for their right to return to their property and ancestral lands, can be compared to proposals like Trump’s suggestion to remove Palestinians from Gaza.
If we ignore violations of international law and war crimes in one place, it signals the weakness of the entire international legal system, especially when the decisions of international courts are neither implemented nor even discussed at a high political level. Meanwhile, some politicians travel to Azerbaijan without acknowledging the violence that took place just a few years ago.
For example, there was a recent scandal when German President Steinmeier visited Armenia and posted a photo of the Artsakh flag in his Instagram stories. He soon deleted it and apologized, after the Azerbaijani side complained. This was seen as a diplomatic victory for Azerbaijan, which was able to influence what the German President could post or say. As a result, he could not even express empathy for a people who had just survived a year-long blockade and starvation. And during his visit to Azerbaijan, the German President didn’t mention the rights of Armenians who had been deported. This speaks volumes about the current state of international law and the lack of global awareness regarding blatant human rights violations.
Genocide as Territorial Erasure
The Armenian Genocide of 1915 is widely acknowledged as one of the first moderngenocides. However, what is often overlooked is that it was not just a massacre, it was a territorial purge, a complete removal of Armenians from their homeland (historical Western Armenia), and till today deported Armenians are prohibited of owning property in Turkey. Unlike other genocides, where survivors or their descendants have been able to return or maintain a recognized historical connection to their lands, Armenians remainpermanently expelled and live all around the world. Now, history is repeating itself in Artsakh, where Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey and Russia, has carried out a second ethnic cleansing, ensuring that Armenians can never return.
Aliyev’s recent interview, which essentially echoed Putin’s speech from February 24th, was deeply disturbing. Once again, history repeats itself: people are being deported from lands they have inhabited for thousands of years. Yet international law is invoked only to defend territorial integrity, not to address war crimes, the protection of Indigenous peoples, or the right to self-determination.
There is a gap in international law, and this case clearly illustrates it. The current government of Armenia cannot represent the people who have been deported from Nagorno-Karabakh, because of the constant threats of war from Azerbaijan. These threats prevent Armenia from initiating a case at the International Criminal Court to address the crimes committed, including potential genocide.
Even more concerning, the Armenian government has expressed willingness to drop existing cases in the International Court of Justice if Azerbaijan agrees to sign a peace agreement. In this way, the rights of the Indigenous Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh are being used as bargaining tools in negotiations, rather than being treated as matters of justice.
As result, Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh have no real representation, or same goes for Armenians from Nakhijevan or Western Armenia. Once again, greater powers are in a position to legitimize what has happened. And ultimately, the only force that can effectively use international law is power itself. If you have power and strong allies, you can achieve what you want. But if you don’t, if you are a small state, or worse, an Indigenous people who have been deported from the lands where you have lived for thousands of years, then international law offers you no justice, only silence.
This is why geography is central to understanding the Armenian Genocide. In Western narratives, genocide is often framed as a singular historical crime, an atrocity to be acknowledged and mourned. But for Armenians, genocide is not a past event, it is anongoing reality. The prohibition of return, the systematic destruction of Armenian churches and monuments, and the forced assimilation of Armenian hostages in Azerbaijan are not separate injustices; they are all part of the same historical process that began in 1915.
The Erasure of Armenian Presence in Global Discourse
This pattern of erasure extends beyond physical geography, it is embedded in the way Armenian suffering is perceived and discussed globally. The disproportionate attention given to some crises while others remain invisible speaks to a deeply ingrained geopolitical bias. It reflects a century-long deprioritization of Armenian existence, where even direct human rights violations, such as Azerbaijan’s illegal imprisonment of Armenian civilians and leaders of Nagorno-Karabkah Republic, fail to make international headlines.
This silence is not accidental. Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer, who coined the term “genocide”, defined it not only as mass murder but as a systematic destruction of a people’s ability to exist as a collective entity. This includes not just killing, but also cultural destruction, forced displacement, and historical revisionism. By this definition, the Armenian Genocide never ended. The same forces that sought to eliminate Armenians from Western Armenia are now ensuring that they disappear from Artsakh and before from Nakhijevan Autonomous Republic. The methods may have changed, but the outcome remains the same: a region cleansed of its indigenous Armenian presence and Armenian cultural heritage is destroyed.
The systematic destruction of Armenian cultural heritage has persisted after 1915, representing a continuous cultural genocide aimed at erasing the Armenian historical presence. In Western Armenia (now eastern Turkey), the early 20th century witnessedthe destruction of approximately 2,000 Armenian churches, with only a handful remaining today. Similarly, in Nakhjeivan, Azerbaijan, between 1997 and 2011, a staggering 98% of Armenian cultural heritage sites were completely destroyed, including medieval monasteries, churches, and cemeteries. This pattern continued in Nagorno-Karabakh, where, following the 2020 conflict, around 1,456 Armenian cultural monuments fell under Azerbaijani control, many of which have been subjected to deliberate damage or destruction. These actions are part of a broader strategy to systematically erase the Armenian cultural and historical footprint in the region.
Besides that, following the Armenian Genocide of 1915, numerous Armenian women and children were forcibly assimilated into Muslim households within the Ottoman Empire. One important initiative was the establishment of the Aleppo Rescue Home, which provided shelter and rehabilitation to survivors. This institution played a crucial role in addressing the complex challenges faced by rescued women, including societal reintegration and psychological recovery.
Additionally, individuals such as Danish missionary Karen Jeppe were instrumental inthese rescue operations. Jeppe’s work involved negotiating the release of Armenian women and children, offering them refuge, and facilitating their reintegration.
But despite these efforts, the number of hidden Armenians, those who were forcibly converted to Islam and assimilated into Turkish society, often forced to conceal their identities to survive, remains unknown to this day. Until the genocide is fully acknowledged, it will be impossible to truly understand this history or conduct proper research on the topic.
The Colonial Context of Armenian Erasure
Another key issue is how the Armenian Genocide is often framed in Western discourse, as a standalone historical atrocity, disconnected from its geopolitical and colonial dimensions. This framing depoliticizes the genocide, making it seem like an unfortunate but closed chapter rather than an ongoing reality. In truth, the Armenian Genocide was part of Ottoman and Turkish settler-colonialism, aimed at permanently erasing Armenian identity from the region.
Today, Azerbaijan’s actions, facilitated by Turkey, are a direct continuation of this colonial erasure. Yet, international institutions and human rights organizations fail tocontextualize these events within a broader history of ethnic cleansing and territorial dispossession. Instead, each instance of violence is treated as a separate geopolitical crisis rather than part of a sustained, century-long campaign to remove Armenians from their lands.
The forced displacement of the indigenous Armenian population from Artsakh(Nagorno-Karabakh) in 2023 marked not only a severe humanitarian crisis but also ahistorical and political moment largely ignored by the international community. The blockade and total deportation of over 120,000 Armenians from their ancestral lands were met with limited response from global institutions, leading to widespread despair and retraumatization among Armenians worldwide.
During the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, Europe signed a gas deal with Azerbaijan, ignoring the starvation of Armenians. Ursula von der Leyen traveled to Azerbaijan to sign the deal, effectively enabling ethnic cleansing.
The silence or complicity surrounding these events echoes the inaction during the Armenian Genocide of the early 20th century in the Ottoman Empire. The consequences of ignoring mass atrocities in the past have been devastating, and today, we are witnessing yet another instance where impunity prevails.
Hostages as a Political Tool
Azerbaijan’s continued refusal to release Armenian prisoners of war and civilians is acalculated political strategy. Holding sham trials plays a crucial role in Azerbaijan’s efforts to portray Armenians not as the indigenous people of Artsakh, as they historically and legally are, but as criminals and terrorists. The longer these individuals remain in captivity, the more Azerbaijan is able to extract forced confessions under duress, using them to justify its broader political narrative.
Beyond the immediate humanitarian concerns, Azerbaijan’s treatment of Armenian hostages must be understood in the context of settler-colonial policies in Artsakh. While the world focuses on the hostages, Azerbaijan systematically destroys and lootsArmenian homes, erases cultural heritage, and repopulates the region with Azerbaijani settlers. The hostage crisis serves not only as a tool of coercion but also as a distraction from the ongoing colonization and erasure of Artsakh’s Armenian identity.
The failure of international institutions to respond meaningfully raises critical questions about the effectiveness of human rights frameworks in preventing and addressing ethnic cleansing. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has addressed issues concerning both the treatment of Armenian prisoners in its Order of 7 December 2021, the ICJ directed Azerbaijan to “protect from violence and bodily harm all persons captured in relation to the 2020 conflict who remain in detention.” Later, on 22 February 2023, the Court ordered Azerbaijan to “take all measures at its disposal to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles, and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions.”
Despite these binding orders, enforcement mechanisms are lacking, allowing states thatdefy international norms to do so with minimal consequences.
The historical precedent is clear: the first Armenian genocide was ignored, and itsconsequences were catastrophic. Without meaningful intervention, the instrumentalization of Armenian hostages and the systematic destruction of Artsakh’s Armenian heritage will continue unchecked. The question remains whether theinternational community will allow yet another cycle of erasure to unfold in silence.
Breaking the Silence
The failure to see what happened in 1915, what happened in Artsakh, and what continues today as a connected process is precisely why the Armenian Genocide remains unresolved. Armenians still cannot return to Western Armenia or Artsakh and Nakhhijevan and the international community continues to look the other way as an entire people’s presence is systematically erased.
This must change. The narrative must shift from mere recognition of the Armenian Genocide to an understanding that genocide is still in progress. The world must acknowledge that the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage, the prohibition of return, and the silencing of Armenian voices are not remnants of a past atrocity, but active components of an ongoing strategy of erasure.
The Armenian people have already endured one genocide that the world ignored. Theyshould not have to endure another.
Arshak Makichyan is a MIA candidate at the Hertie School.