BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 20. Azerbaijan's Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeyhun Bayramov has made a post on the 33rd anniversary of the 20 January tragedy on his Twitter account, Trend reports.

"We honor the memory of our heroic martyrs who gave their lives for the freedom and independence of Azerbaijan. As a result of the sacrifice of our martyrs, our tricolor flag flies in every corner of Azerbaijan," the tweet says.

On the night of January 19-20, 1990, as a result of military aggression of the units of the Soviet Army and special forces, as well as contingents of internal troops against Azerbaijan, civilians, including children, women and the elderly were massacred in the cities of Baku, Sumgayit, Lankaran and Neftchala by order of the USSR leadership.

As a result of the occupying forces’ military aggression 149 civilians were killed, 744 were seriously injured, and 4 people went missing. The Soviet army was sent to the country in order to forcefully suppress the mass protests of the Azerbaijani people and the national independence movement started in response to the discrimination policy of the USSR leadership against the people of Azerbaijan, the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis from their historical lands in the territory of present-day Armenia, and Armenia’s unfounded territorial claims against Karabakh, committed an unprecedented massacre against the civilian population grossly violating international law and the Constitution.