March 31 marks the Day of the Genocide of Azerbaijanis. 107 years ago - in March 1918 - tens of thousands of Azerbaijanis were brutally murdered by armed Armenian gangs simply because of their ethnic origin.
Taking advantage of the hostilities during World War I, as well as the February and October Revolutions of 1917 in Tsarist Russia, Armenian ultranationalists - under the banner of Bolshevism - began to put into practice their plans to create a Greater Armenia on the territory of Azerbaijan. After seizing power in Baku, Armenian nationalists, together with local Bolsheviks, carried out mass massacres of Azerbaijani citizens during the Nowruz holiday in March 1918. As a result, tens of thousands of civilians in Baku and other cities of Azerbaijan were killed on ethnic and religious grounds, entire settlements were completely destroyed, and cultural monuments, mosques, and cemeteries were razed to the ground. Within one day - March 31, 1918 - 30,000 people were killed in the Baku region alone. In less than two months, March and April 1918, the armed groups of the Armenian Bolsheviks took the lives of over 50,000 Azerbaijanis.
After the Azerbaijanis liberated Baku, the Extraordinary Investigative Commission of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic investigated the March Genocide committed by Armenians in 1918. A special structure was created in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to raise awareness around the world about the truth about this tragedy. In 1919 and 1920 The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic observes March 31 as a national day of mourning.
After regaining its independence in 1991, the Republic of Azerbaijan was able to give a correct political assessment of the genocide of March 1918. On the eve of the 80th anniversary of the tragedy, on March 26, 1998, the then President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev issued a decree designating March 31 as the Day of the Genocide of Azerbaijanis.
The research initiated by the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan in 2007 revealed a mass grave - one piece of evidence of the genocide committed by Armenians against the local population in 1918.
The commemoration of the genocide of Azerbaijanis on March 31 107 years ago is important not only to establish historical justice, but also to enable people in the region and around the world to learn from the tragedy in order to enjoy peaceful, secure and prosperous lives.