The 21th anniversary of Khojaly genocide was commemorated in Sidney, Australia. Before the Friday prayer, nearly 3500 people at the Gelibolu Mosque, the largest mosque in Australia, were informed about the genocide in details by President of Azerbaijan-Turkish Friendship Society Imametdin Kassoumov.
Nearly 150 representatives of the Azerbaijani, Turkish, other Turkic organizations and local community, as well as Azerbaijani students of the Australian universities gathered at the Turkish House to commemorate Khojaly tragedy. Izzet Anmak, Deputy Chairman of Auburn municipality, dense-populated by the Turkic-speaking people, attended the ceremony. Local Diaspora representatives showed video tapes sent by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation at the event organized by the Australian Azerbaijan-Turkish Friendship Society and Radio Voice of Azerbaijan, broadcasting in Sidney.
The Khojaly genocide was the killing of hundreds of ethnic Azerbaijani civilians from the town of Khojaly on 25–26 February 1992 by the Armenian and, partially, by CIS armed forces during the Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Thomas de Waal, author of a history of the Karabakh war titled “Black Garden” and a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, notes that the Khojaly anniversary is “marked with ever-increasing gravity each year and has become a central pillar of Azerbaijan’s case to the world that it is the victim of aggression.”