Photos: YouTube Screenshots\Wikimedia Commons
(LifeSiteNews) — Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is calling on the international community to assist the more than 60,000 ethnic Armenians fleeing war-torn Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous, heavily disputed region in the Shiite Muslim majority nation of Azerbaijan that was conquered by that country earlier this month.
Viganò’s message was supported by traditional Catholic actor Mel Gibson, who has described the events as “ethnic cleansing.”
“Where is the international community, always ready to welcome Islamic migrants of military age, fleeing war zones or funding a proxy war in Ukraine under the pretext of Russian invasion?” Viganò asked. “Where is the petulant Bergoglio, according to whom no ethnic replacement is taking place?”
How did the situation get to this point?
Also known as the Republic of Artsakh, Nagorno-Karabakh was a former satellite of the USSR before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since that time, its 99 percent Christian population has suffered through three significant conflicts with Azerbaijan – one in 1994, another in 2020, and now the current situation.
During the First World War, the Turks committed genocide of Christian Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, leaving more than 1 million dead. Gibson has said that in this instance “history tragically repeats itself.”
