Residents of Yerevan visited Yerablur Military Cemetery on New Year's Eve and honoured the memory of the servicemen killed in the recent escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Footage shows people mourning at the graves and laying flowers, while one of the visitors played a mournful tune on an accordion.

Artur Khachatryan, member of the 'Armenia' opposition faction of Armenia's National Assembly, called the past year 'one of the most tragic' for the Armenian people.

"It was one of the most tragic years for the Armenian people. For the first time in the history of the Armenian people in the conditions of statehood, a part of our people - the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh - was subjected to genocide, subjected to ethnic cleansing under the cold, treacherous indifference of the Armenian authorities," he noted.

On Monday, the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (Artsakh) officially ceased to exist, and all its state institutions were dissolved under a decree signed by head of the republic Samvel Shahramanyan on September 28, 2023.

Following the long-running conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan retook control of the breakaway territory, a separatist area governed by ethnic Armenians, in September.

It followed what Baku called a 'counter-terrorist operation' in the region, which Yerevan described as a 'large-scale aggression'.

Baku claims sovereignty over the territory, while earlier this year, the Yerevan government recognised Azerbaijan’s claim - but also called for protection for the region's ethnic Armenians.