Watch: Serj Tankian appears on BBC News to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh

Over the weekend, System Of A Down frontman Serj Tankian was interviewed about the current humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh (known as Artsakh by Armenians) by BBC News.

The Armenian-American vocalist and activist joined Artak Beglaryan – the former state minister and human rights ombudsman of the Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh Republic – on September 2 to tell the BBC about the Azerbaijani blockade of the only road that connects Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and the outside world, the Lachin corridor. This closure was implemented last December and has resulted in huge shortages of food, medication and other essentials for thousands and thousands of Armenians.

As Serj sadly highlights, “There are 120,000 people – 30,000 of which are children – that are literally on the brink of starvation. For nine months this blockade has been going on, and the whole world has been basically telling Azerbaijan they have to open this corridor… and they’re not budging.

“So the question is: are we going to act, or are we going to allow another genocide of Armenians – this time, in this century, the 21st century – to occur?”

Watch the full interview below:

Sharing Serj’s interview far and wide, SOAD took to social media to say: “PLEASE REPOST! @serjtankian and @artak_beglaryan were on @bbcnews to talk about the devastating Azeri humanitarian blockade on Artsakh, the need for the [International] community to ACT by #sanctionAzerbaijan and help bring in UN peacekeepers to avoid #ArmenianGenocide2023. Serj also spoke about the need for the UK gov’t to pivot from complicity in Genocide to responsibility to avoid it.”

Read this: “I mean every word that I say, every lyric that I sing, every noise that I make”: Meet the real Serj Tankian