Half of the population of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region have been displaced in clashes between Armenian forces and Azerbaijan as Russian President Vladimir Putin called for the end to a "tragedy" that shows no sign of abating.
"Of course this is a huge tragedy. People are dying, there are heavy losses on both sides," Putin said during an interview with state-run television.
Even if the longstanding conflict could not be resolved, a ceasefire must be agreed "as quickly as possible", he added.
Intermittent shelling by Azerbaijan's forces has turned Karabakh's main city Stepanakert into a ghost town dotted with unexploded munitions and shell craters.
Much of the Stepanakert's 50,000-strong population has left, with those remaining hunkering down in cellars.
They were disturbed by air raid sirens throughout the night as multiple explosions went off in a city plunged into total darkness.
The city was hit by new strikes in the morning, with smoke visible and the noise indicating the source was a drone, an AFP correspondent said.
"According to our preliminary estimates, some 50 percent of Karabakh's population and 90 percent of women and children -- or some 70,000-75,000 people -- have been displaced," Karabakh rights ombudsman Artak Beglaryan told AFP Wednesday.
Azerbaijan has accused Armenian forces of shelling civilian targets in urban areas, including its second-largest city of Ganja.
Prosecutors spokeswoman Gunay Salimadze said the 427 dwellings populated by some 1,200 people had been destroyed since the start of the current conflict.
The International Committee of the Red Cross at the weekend condemned "reported indiscriminate shelling and other alleged unlawful attacks", saying "scores" of civilians had already lost their lives.
Baku and Yerevan have for decades been locked in a simmering conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh and attempts to find a final resolution have always met with deadlock.
It broke away from Baku in a 1990s war that claimed the lives of some 30,000 people and declared independence.
Nagorno-Karabakh's 140,000 inhabitants are almost exclusively Armenians. It remains acknowledged by the international community as part of Azerbaijan and no state, including Armenia itself, recognizes its independence.
In an interview with AFP Tuesday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Turkey's "full support" had motivated its ally Azerbaijan to reignite fighting, describing the role of Armenian forces as a "counter-terrorism operation".
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 1,200 fighters have been sent by Turkey and at least 64 have already died.
