“I was born in Saral village of Loru-Pambak district of Western Azerbaijan. Armenians first forced us to accept that Karabakh belongs to Armenians. When we did not comply, they would use force. They went to Boyuk Garakilsa (Kirovakan) district, repeatedly blocked the buses and hurt the population. They forced people to sign petition on the transfer of Karabakh to Armenia. Despite this, no Azerbaijani agreed to sign. How many people were traumatized by this. My uncle Bashirov Khanlar was one of them. He was traumatized and we brought him to Baku in an injured state. In 1988, they cut off the electricity to our village and did not allow anyone to leave. In short, we lived under siege. I wrote a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev and the first secretaries of 15 republics. After the earthquake, our situation got worse. Since many Armenians died in the earthquake, they could not massacre us. When my grandpa Masim’s family left the village his son was killed in a place called Hamzachiman. The people of our district were taken to Gazakh district by helicopter. People from our village also died during the earthquake. Our houses were destroyed in the 8.5-magnitude earthquake. But it’s good that the earthquake occured and our houses were not left for Armenians. We went to Hamamli district to enroll in pioneer school. At that time, someone threw colored paint on Heydar Aliyev’s portrait. I objected to an Armenian named Abuchanyan and gave him a lesson. That’s why I wasn’t accepted to the pioneer school. However, they reprimanded Abuchanyan as well. Our village has been deported several times. The first time they were deported to Türkiye was in 1915. At that time, my grandfather Garib led the population to Türkiye. The headquarters of the Turkish army was established in the village of Saral in the hearth of Molla Pasha. The last time we were subjected to ethnic cleansing and deportation was in 1988.”