1 / 1

Thank you, Chairperson.

I would also like to join in congratulating Baroness Doreen Massey for her excellent work where she has looked at the Covid-19 pandemic and its challenges from the angle of how the children, the most vulnerable and most beloved group, are facing.

A story that I want to tell you is a very simple one. On 23 March, if I'm not mistaken, the UN General Secretary called for an armistice all around the world because of the pandemic. Azerbaijan didn't quite understand the terms of the armistice and the ceasefire and used the opportunity of Covid-19 to launch an aggression against the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

The story is not only that. This is just to demonstrate the way of thinking because even in the worst medieval times people didn't launch wars during the Pax.

But again to the situation on the ground. There were people, children, who couldn't enjoy their education as every other child in the world did, because they were confined to their homes. Now with the war advancing, they were learning a very bitter lesson. That their homes can be bombed, that their schools can be destroyed, their hospitals can be destroyed. The worst of all, they were learning that their parents had to take them and flee somewhere or they had to go and die.

They were seeing a situation and there was a two-front war: one against Covid-19 that everybody in the world was fighting, and another one against aggression. Against drones. Against the mercenaries and all of that.

I'm just going to provide some numbers for you to clearly to understand the situation. About 40,000 children had to leave their homes in order to be saved from the aggression during the pandemic, and many of them had to leave it so fast that they were not able even to take documents, necessary clothes, anything with them.

This discussion can be very important because I don't want any child anywhere in this world to learn that kind of a lesson. I want them to have their educational schools with their peers in a peaceful manner where they can enjoy their rights. When this kind of lesson is taught to a child, however, this is something that is very problematic.

Another thing that I want to stress or underline is that it's important that the international community has been helpful in providing humanitarian aids to these children and to their families. I think that only the compassion at this kind of very tragic moments truly can tell the children something about their future that then can impact humanity.

Once again, Baroness Doreen Massey, thank you very much for your report and I hope that we are sincere in our discussions.