A humanitarian disaster is under way in Nagorno-Karabakh

The war unleashed on September 19th by Azerbaijan against Nagorno-Karabakh, a separatist ethnic-Armenian enclave, lasted less than a day. But it has ended a hostile stand-off that had lasted more than 30 years, and prompted an exodus of tens of thousands of terrified people. It has also placed Azerbaijan’s backer, Turkey, in a stronger position in the Caucasus as Russia’s influence there withers.

Overwhelmed by Azerbaijan’s modern army, exhausted and starved by a nine-month blockade, isolated from its Armenian motherland and betrayed by Russia, which took it upon itself to provide security in the region, Nagorno-Karabakh had no option but to capitulate. As The Economist went to press, around 65,000 of the enclave’s ethnic Armenians (from a pre-war population of perhaps 120,000) had fled. Azerbaijan’s choice to attack the region rather than pursue a Western-backed deal guaranteeing the civil rights of its Armenian minority means that it is guilty of ethnic cleansing.