Qarabag FK is not only a refugee football club but also the most successful team in Azerbaijan. Located in Baku, they originally hail from the 'ghost' city of Aghdam, in the Nagorno Karabakh region of the South Caucasus. When a war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the late 1980s, Armenia forces seized Nagorno Karabakh - a disputed territory that both countries claim - and laid waste to Aghdam. The club relocated to the Azerbaijani capital of Baku and rebuilt. But after the second Nagorno Karabakh war, which Azerbaijan won, the government has begun to rebuild Aghdam at breakneck speed. The centre-piece will be Qarabag's regenerated former stadium. The football club is a symbol of an Azerbaijani return to lands the government describes as "unlawfully stolen". But as one team returns, another has been forced out. Lernayin Artsakh FC was based in Stepanakert. As Azeri troops bore down on the city in September 2023, its players, officials and families fled for Armenia, an act that the Armenian government called "ethnic cleansing". The team is now based in Armenia, playing in the second division.
As one team prepares to return to a city they once fled, another prepares for a life in exile. James Montague travels to Nagorno Karabakh to visit the two refugee football clubs who once played in the same league but who have come to represent division and displacement in the region.
Presenter: James Montague
Producer and Sound Mix: Ben Wyatt
A Comuniqe production for the BBC World Service.
(Image Credit: James Montague A no-score draw in Nagorno Karabakh
