At least 13,000 people from Nagorny Karabakh have fled to Armenia, Yerevan reported on Tuesday, almost a week after Azerbaijan's lightning and victorious offensive in this secessionist Caucasus region with a majority Armenian population.
On Monday evening, in the midst of the exodus, a fuel depot exploded in the enclave, killing at least 20 people and injuring 280, the separatist authorities announced on Tuesday, calling for urgent external assistance to deal with the disaster.
"Dozens of patients are still in critical condition," they said in a statement, adding that the injured, suffering from burns of varying severity, had been hospitalized in Nagorny Karabakh.
Twenty people died, thirteen of them unidentified. The bodies of the unidentified victims will be submitted for forensic analysis, according to the same source.
Thousands of Nagorny Karabakh residents have already taken refuge in Armenia, arriving by car or bus. On Tuesday, the Armenian government announced that it had received more than 13,000, while hundreds of vehicles were still on their way to the country, according to an AFP team.
