Key Takeaways
- The flight of over 100,000 ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh after the September 2023 conflict has saddled Armenia with a massive humanitarian crisis centered on housing and long-term resettlement.
- Azerbaijan’s “Great Return” program aims to resettle its own people displaced in the 90s, but progress is severely hampered by thirty years of infrastructure decay and the slow, dangerous work of demining the region.
- International aid from groups like the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is flowing into Armenia, but the focus is shifting from immediate relief to the much harder problem of long-term housing and economic integration.
- A return of ethnic Armenians to Nagorno-Karabakh is currently off the table. Their former homes and infrastructure are gone, and there are no security guarantees.
- The region’s future stability hinges on how this reconstruction and resettlement plays out, and whether ongoing diplomacy can actually resolve the final border disputes between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The mass exodus of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh after the September 2023 conflict has created a humanitarian crisis that continues to strain Armenia’s resources while leaving Azerbaijan with a depopulated and destroyed territory to manage. The situation is a raw look at what happens after the fighting stops. You have over 100,000 people with no homes, an entire region emptied out almost overnight, and two countries facing decades of cleanup. After Azerbaijan’s military offensive, what amounted to the region’s entire ethnic Armenian population fled, kicking off a resettlement challenge that’s expected to drag on well into 2026 because of the sheer lack of housing and jobs in Armenia. The question is what this means for the region and for the displaced people on both sides.
Context and Background
Azerbaijan’s offensive in September 2023 was the definitive end to a decades-long conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory but was controlled by ethnic Armenian forces since the early 1990s. Following a brief 24-hour military operation, the de facto Armenian government there capitulated, which then triggered the mass departure of the Armenian population. This mass departure, which many rights groups have labeled ethnic cleansing, effectively hollowed out the entire region, leaving behind ghost towns and villages that had been inhabited for generations. The speed of the exodus was stunning. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) registered over 100,000 people crossing into Armenia within a single week, a deluge that completely swamped the country’s ability to provide immediate shelter and aid. For Armenia, a nation of just under three million, absorbing a refugee population equivalent to over 3% of its own in a matter of days created an immediate and crippling strain on housing, healthcare, and social services. On the other side of the ledger, Azerbaijan is moving ahead with its “Great Return” program, a state-led initiative to resettle ethnic Azerbaijanis who were themselves displaced from the region during the first war back in the 1990s. This has involved Baku channeling billions into a massive reconstruction effort, planning modern housing and new infrastructure for cities like Aghdam and Fuzuli that have been in ruins for thirty years. The reality on the ground, however, is complicated. Besides the fact that entire cities need to be rebuilt from the ground up, the entire territory is heavily contaminated with landmines, which makes any large-scale return of people physically impossible for the foreseeable future. A report from the International Crisis Group in late 2025 confirmed the demining process is painfully slow, and also pointed to the deep psychological scars for people expected to return to live in what was, until recently, a mine-strewn warzone, meaning any full return is years away.
Implications for Displaced Populations
For the ethnic Armenians who fled to Armenia, the situation is a daily struggle for survival. Many arrived with nothing but the clothes they were wearing, having left behind their homes and all their possessions. The Armenian government, working with organizations like the UNHCR, has been scrambling to supply the basics like temporary shelter and food. Long-term integration for 100,000-plus people is a logistical nightmare, involving everything from finding permanent apartments and houses, creating entirely new job markets, and finding classroom space for thousands of children in an already-strained school system. Right now, many are in temporary housing like hotels or staying with host families, but that’s a solution with a short shelf-life as government funds for hotels run out and host families simply don’t have the resources to support extra people indefinitely. The psychological toll is also immense, with aid workers I’ve spoken to on the ground reporting widespread trauma and a sense of total loss, particularly among older people who lived their entire lives in Nagorno-Karabakh. Trying to rebuild a life from zero is one thing, but attempting it in Armenia, a country already dealing with its own economic problems and high unemployment, makes finding a job and a place to live almost impossible for many of these refugees. There’s a pervasive sense of hopelessness, with most people just wondering if they will ever see their homes again. Azerbaijan’s “Great Return” program is hampered by the scale of destruction and the pervasive threat of landmines left over from decades of conflict. While the government in Baku is pouring money into rebuilding cities like Aghdam, the practicalities are immense, starting with the fact that these areas need to be completely cleared of mines before any construction can even begin. Reconstructing buildings is a matter of money and time, but creating a functioning economy with jobs and local businesses in a region that has been a ghost town for thirty years is a far more complex problem. The long-term security situation also remains a major concern for potential returnees. Despite the current ceasefire, the decades of war have left a deep-seated mistrust, and many displaced Azerbaijanis are hesitant to move their families back to an area so close to a still-unsettled border. The landmine contamination is a lethal, ongoing threat. Human Rights Watch has documented that mines and unexploded ordnance continue to kill and maim civilians, making huge areas unusable for farming or habitation. This demining effort slows down every aspect of resettlement and massively inflates the cost of the “Great Return” program, as every square meter of land for a new house or farm has to be painstakingly cleared.
What’s Next?
The path forward for the region depends on two key factors. The future of the South Caucasus hinges on whether Armenia can manage the long-term integration of over 100,000 refugees without its economy collapsing, and if diplomacy can produce a lasting peace treaty that settles final border demarcations. Armenia’s immediate challenge is to shift from providing emergency food and shelter to creating concrete pathways for long-term stability, which means jobs and permanent housing for the refugees. This can’t happen without sustained international funding beyond initial emergency aid, direct foreign investment to stimulate the Armenian economy, and targeted job-training programs for the displaced population. Initial aid packages from the European Union and the United States were a start, but absorbing a population equal to 3% of your country’s total requires multi-year financial commitments for housing and economic development, not just one-off donations. Azerbaijan, for its part, remains focused on the methodical process of rebuilding and demining Nagorno-Karabakh. This is a multi-decade project requiring billions in investment just to rebuild basic infrastructure like roads, power, and water, before even starting on the bigger task of creating a self-sustaining local economy. For the “Great Return” to succeed, returnees need to feel physically safe from leftover mines and future conflict, and they need to see real economic opportunities, like viable farms or local jobs, that make a long-term future there seem possible. In the background, groups like the UN and various human rights organizations continue to push for access to Nagorno-Karabakh to monitor conditions and ensure the safety of any remaining civilians, though access has been limited. While the right of return for ethnic Armenians is discussed diplomatically, there’s almost no chance of it happening in the near future given the complete destruction of their former communities and the lack of any security guarantees. The success or failure of these resettlement efforts will directly impact regional power dynamics, influencing relations between Armenia, Azerbaijan, and their powerful neighbors like Russia, Turkey, and Iran for decades to come. The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh is a stark reminder that geopolitical disputes over territory result in actual people, over 100,000 in this case, losing their homes, livelihoods, and history. Rebuilding will require sustained, multi-billion dollar investments from Azerbaijan and long-term financial and logistical support for Armenia from international partners, lasting far beyond the initial emergency phase.
