Another group of former internally displaced persons has returned to their homes in Azerbaijan, with 60 families relocating to Khojaly, Hadrut, and Girmizi Bazar.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the liberation of Hadrut settlement in Azerbaijan’s Khojavend district from occupation, News.Az reports.

By Liam Collins and John Spencer

Authors’ note: Many of the details included in this case study are drawn from interviews with Azerbaijani soldiers conducted during a research trip to the site of the battle in March 2025. Also of note, while many towns and villages in the Karabakh region have both Armenian and Azerbaijani names, the authors have chosen to use the Azerbaijani names since the international community recognizes the region as being part of Azerbaijan. As a final note, Azerbaijanis refer to the region as Karabakh, but we chose to use the name “Nagorno-Karabakh” for this article given that is the name more widely used by Western media and think tanks. The word “Nagorno” means mountainous in Russian and was added to “Karabakh” during the Soviet era.

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev has shared a video on his social media accounts on the fourth anniversary of the liberation of Hadrut from occupation, News.Az reports.

Today, Azerbaijan marks four years since the liberation of Hadrut town in Khojavand district from the Armenian occupation.