Named in honour of those who helped Nagorno Karabakh win independence from Azerbaijan 30 years ago, Freedom Fighter Street no longer has homes fit for heroes. A plaza of Soviet-style housing in the breakaway republic’s capital, Stepanakert, the street’s crumbling flats have barely had a facelift since Communist times. Now, though, the four-storey blocs are in need of more than just a lick of paint after a missile crashed into them during a round of shelling on Friday night. The missile – one of scores that have hit Stepanakert since war resumed again with Azerbaijan a week ago – killed an elderly woman living on the third floor and wounded dozens more. Yet the casualty count would probably have been far higher had most of the residents not already been sheltering in the flats’ basements, which double as makeshift bomb bunkers.
