Azerbaijan has erased yet another historic monument in occupied Artsakh, this time a Shiite mosque, reinforcing a pattern of cultural destruction that now targets multiple faiths and centuries of heritage. High-resolution satellite imagery confirms the demolition of the late 19th century Ayghek mosque in the occupied Kashatagh region.
The mosque, built in 1890 and once serving as a rare surviving example of late 19th century Shiite architecture in the region, was demolished by Azerbaijan between January 2021 and April 2024 to clear ground for the Khudafarin–Kubatlu–Berdzor highway. This occurred despite the fact that Armenians had preserved the building for decades and had undertaken restoration of Islamic sites elsewhere in Artsakh.
For nearly thirty years, under Artsakh administration, Islamic cultural sites were treated as part of the region’s shared heritage. Authorities conserved several Persian era mosques and carried out a full restoration of the Upper Govhar Agha Mosque in Shushi, even though these structures belonged to a different religious tradition. Azerbaijan’s rapid destruction of the Ayghek mosque within a few years of occupation stands in stark contrast to this record of preservation.
Caucasus Heritage Watch, affiliated with Cornell University and Purdue University, has verified the demolition. A satellite image dated January 8, 2021 shows the mosque and minaret intact. A second image dated April 23, 2024 shows the site entirely cleared and absorbed into the expanding highway corridor. The loss is assessed as complete and irreversible.
Historical documentation further confirms the mosque’s authenticity. Researcher Samvel Karapetyan photographed the structure in 2009, recording both its façade and the 1890 inscription. These materials have been verified by Raffi Kortoshyan, co-director of the RIT Foundation.
The destruction violates internationally recognized standards for the protection of cultural property in occupied territories. According to the November 2024 report of Caucasus Heritage Watch, the pace of erasure has sharply increased since Azerbaijan’s September 2023 military offensive and the forced displacement of more than one hundred thousand Armenians from Artsakh. Most losses involve Armenian Christian sites, but the demolition of the Ayghek Shiite mosque shows that the campaign is not confined to one community or one faith.
If this trajectory continues, an entire layer of the region’s multicultural history is at risk of being wiped out under Azerbaijan’s heavy hand.
