Pope Francis has expressed concern about the potential for a humanitarian catastrophe in the Caucasus. Some 120,000 Armenian Christians, resident in the landlocked Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, sometimes referred to as the Republic of Artsakh, are currently enduring an economic blockade.
The blockade of Artsakh has been imposed by Azerbaijan, and means a shortage of bread and other basic food, as well as the cutting off of gas supplies, for Armenians living in Artsakh, which is connected to Armenia via the Lachlin Corridor. The Lachlin Corridor is currently controlled, but only just, by hard pressed Russian troops who have been tasked with keeping the peace in the region.
