COVID-19

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Azerbaijan

Opinion | Four years of entrapment: why Azerbaijan’s land borders remain closed

by Javid Agha

•8 min read

Four years since the coronavirus pandemic began, Azerbaijan’s land borders remain closed to all civilian traffic. While officially this is to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, a number of theories exist regarding the real reason behind the measure. In the spring of 2020, Azerbaijan followed the example of many other countries, closing its land borders to prevent the transmission of the coronavirus, alongside a host of other preventive measures. Later the same year, the Second Nagorno-Kar

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan extends ‘COVID-19’ border closure until April

by Ismi Aghayev

•2 min read

Azerbaijan has extended the closure of its land borders to ‘prevent the spread of COVID-19’ until April, despite dropping most COVID-related restrictions, including air travel. Azerbaijan has been extending the closure of its borders since the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020. The country has since dropped all other anti-pandemic measures, including the use of facemasks and vaccination certificates, and has allowed Azerbaijanis and foreign nationals to enter the country by air without PCR

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani Georgians appeal to Aliyev to open border

by Shota Kincha

•2 min read

Over a thousand people, mostly Georgian ethnic Azerbaijanis, have signed an online petition calling on Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev to restore at least limited movement across the Georgian-Azerbaijani land border. The petition was launched by Samira Bayramova, a civil activist based in Marneuli, southern Georgia. Georgia’s population of ethnic Azerbaijanis numbers more than 230,000, constituting the largest (6%) ethnic minority group in Georgia, most living in the southeast of the

Azerbaijan

Three years since the COVID outbreak, Azerbaijanis still cannot cross their border

by Islam Shikhali

•6 min read

Three years after Azerbaijan closed its land borders in response to the coronavirus pandemic, those borders remain closed. But what did their closure mean for Azerbaijan’s people and government? Shahin Valiyev’s final years in life were marked by displacement, fear over the COVID-19 pandemic, and an inability to return home to Azerbaijan. Shortly after the pandemic made headlines around the world in 2020, Azerbaijan closed its land borders. Many Azerbaijanis studying or working in neighbou

Four Azerbaijani students who were killed in the earthquake in Turkey. Image via Azertag.

2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake

Azerbaijanis killed in Turkey quake ‘could have survived if border was open’

by Ismi Aghayev

•2 min read

An Azerbaijani studying in Turkey has claimed that four other students who died in the Turkey–Syria earthquake would have been at home in Azerbaijan when the quake struck, had the country’s land borders not still been closed ‘due to COVID-19’. In a post on Facebook on Wednesday, Ibrahim Ibrahimov, a student at the Malatya Inonu University, blamed both the ongoing border closure and the ‘outragous’ prices of the country’s national carrier for their deaths. On 14 February, the bodies of Nazarz

Levan Khabeishvili leading a pro-Saakashvili demonstration in Tbilisi on 4 January. Photo: Shota Kincha/OC Media

COVID-19

UNM leadership contender threatens to break Saakashvili out of jail

by Tata Shoshiashvili

•2 min read

One of the contenders for leadership of Georgia’s opposition United National Movement (UNM) party has threatened to break Mikheil Saakashvili out of jail after the former president contracted COVID-19. Speaking to TV Pirveli on Tuesday, Levan Khabeishvili said that if necessary, he would ‘physically’ free Saakashvili from custody. Khabeishvili is challenging Nika Melia’s leadership of the country’s largest opposition party, a party founded by Saakashvili. Khabeishvili’s comments came as re

COVID-19

Georgian doctor charged with fatal negligence of a patient in COVID shot allergic reaction

by Shota Kincha

•2 min read

The Prosecutor’s Office has charged a doctor for failing to provide emergency medical assistance to their coworker, nurse Megi Bakradze, when she experienced a fatal allergic reaction to the COVID vaccine in 2021. Both Bakradze and the unnamed doctor who administered her COVID-19 jab worked at the Imedi clinic in Akhaltsikhe in southwestern Georgia. Bakradze, 27, lapsed into a coma 20–30 minutes after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine on 18 March, and died of complications a day later. She