It marks 106 years since the massacre perpetrated by Armenian Dashnaks together with Bolsheviks against Azerbaijanis. Leveraging the turmoil of the 1917 February and October revolutions in Russia, Armenians succeeded in realizing their claims under the Bolshevik banner. From March 30th to April 2nd, 1918, the mass atrocities led by Armenian Bolshevik forces, led by Stepan Shaumyan, began in Baku and resulted in the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people, including many elderly, women, and children. Azerbaijani civilians were murdered solely based on their national identity. Armenians set fire to homes, burning people alive. They destroyed national architectural landmarks, schools, hospitals, mosques, and other monuments, turning a significant part of Baku into ruins.
The genocide of Azerbaijanis was particularly brutal in Baku, Shamakhi, Guba districts, as well as in Karabakh, Zangezur, Nakhchivan, Lankaran, and other regions of Azerbaijan. Peaceful civilians were massacred en masse, villages were burned, and national cultural monuments were destroyed and annihilated.
After the establishment of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, special attention was paid to the events of March 1918. On July 15, 1918, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted a decision to establish an Extraordinary Investigation Commission to investigate this tragedy. The commission investigated the March genocide, the initial atrocities in Shamakhi, and the severe crimes committed by Armenians in the territory of the Erivan governorate. A special institution was created near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to convey these facts to the world community. March 31st was twice commemorated as the National Mourning Day by the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1919 and 1920. This was an attempt to give political significance for the first time in history to the genocide against Azerbaijanis and the ongoing occupation processes of our territories for more than a century. However, the fall of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic did not allow this matter to be concluded.
On March 26, 1998, President Heydar Aliyev signed a decree on “The Genocide of Azerbaijanis,” officially designating March 31st as the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis.