In 1979 , the total Armenian population of the districts of Kalbajar , Lachin , Qubadli , Zangilan , Jabrayil , Fuzuli and Agdam was around 1,400 people . An OSCE fact-finding mission established at Azerbaijan 's request visited these regions in February 2005 with the intention to assess the scale of the settlement attempts . The mission 's findings showed that these districts had as of 2005 an overall population of 14,000 persons , mostly living in precarious social conditions . It consisted primarily of ethnic Armenians displaced from the non-conflict zones of Azerbaijan during the war . It was noted , however , that most of them had settled in the conflict zone after having lived in Armenia for several years and some held Armenian passports and even voted in Armenian elections . A smaller segment of the settlers were originally from the towns of Gyumri and Spitak in Armenia who had lived in temporary shelters following the devastating 1988 earthquake before moving to Karabakh , as well as a small number of natives of Yerevan who moved there for financial reasons . A field assessment mission revisited the region in October 2010 , confirming that there had not been much growth in population or change in the living conditions of the settlers . The Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group who visited Nagorno-Karabakh , Kalbajar and Lachin in 2014 reported seeing signs of improvements in the infrastructure but could not observe any indications that the size of the population had changed in recent years
1988 earthquake
1988 Armenian earthquake
Republic of Artsakh