On March 29, Sumgait State University hosted an event organized by the Faculty of History and Geography dedicated to March 31 Genocide Day of Azerbaijanis.

Before the event, the teaching staff of the SSU studied photos of the Dashnak-Bolshevik armed formations in Baku city and surrounding regions on March 31, 1918, and observed the memory of the martyrs with a minute of respect.

After showing the video dedicated to the genocide, SSU rector Rufat Azizov, who opened the event with his opening speech, spoke about the importance of not forgetting these or other events that were remembered for their mass and special cruelty on March 31, 1918. Stating that the interests of individual states or peoples who want to establish a state are behind the tragedies that have occurred, the rector spoke about the factors that determined this: ‘Mass massacres in Baku, Shamakhi, Guba, Lankaran, Karabakh, Nakhchivan, Yerevan and other regions served to free up as many territories as possible for the Armenian state planned to be established in our region’

Comparing similar events with the war started by the Armenian state against our country in 1988, Rufat Azizov touched upon the acts of genocide carried out against our people by the will of the Armenian state in Khojaly, Garadaghly and other regions on January 20. Emphasizing the declaration of March 31 as the Genocide Day of Azerbaijanis by the decree signed by President Heydar Aliyev as a very important step, the rector said that the Victory won by our Victorious Armed Forces under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev in the 44-day Patriotic War that began on September 27, 2020 was the final war of the Genocide.

Then Professor Shirkhan Salimov, Head of the Department of History of Azerbaijan and East European Peoples, said, ‘March 31 genocide is a crime committed against the people of Azerbaijan’, Samir Maharramov, head teacher of that department, ‘Genocide committed by Armenians in South Azerbaijan’, Songul Karimzadeh, a student of the Faculty of History and Geography, presented her report on ‘Mass graves of victims of the March genocide are a clear example of Armenian brutality.’ In reports and speeches, it was justified that the crime committed against disabled people and the civilian population, which began on March 31, 1918 in Baku and the surrounding regions, and continued in the first decade of April, was a fact of genocide against Azerbaijanis.