Armenian police detained more than a dozen protesters outside a government building in Yerevan on August 8 after they demanded authorities take steps to unblock the Lachin Corridor, the only road linking the ethnic Armenian-populated Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. The Interior Ministry said 14 people were detained for failing to comply with police orders but said they would be released soon.

Armenian Protesters Demanding Government Take Steps To Unblock Lachin Corridor Arrested

Armenian police on August 8 detained more than a dozen protesters outside a government building in Yerevan after they demanded the authorities take steps to unblock the Lachin Corridor, the only road linking the Armenian-populated Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.

The Interior Ministry said 14 people were detained for failing to comply with police orders but said they would be released soon.

The protesters arrived at a government building in the morning and demanded authorities open the corridor, saying that if the government didn’t do it, they wanted to be armed so that they could open it themselves.

Yerevan and international aid groups have warned that a dire humanitarian situation has been unfolding in Nagorno-Karabakh since convoys of food and medicine have been blocked from reaching the region.

The protesters, who said they were members of a military unit, said they intended to travel by bus to Kornidzor, a village on the border with Azerbaijan where trucks containing aid have been standing.