Due to escalating Armenian violence throughout Karabakh and its agressive expansionist policies, hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis became refugees, forced to leave their native villages and settle outside borders imposed by the Armenian military. Although it is difficult to ascertain the exact numbers of people who became refugees as a result of the war, it is estimated that up to 1 million Azerbaijanis were forced to flee, nearly 1/8th of Azerbaijan’s entire population.
For over a decade, these refugees made their homes in temporary camps just outside the borders controlled by the Armenian military, as Azerbaijan struggled to come to terms with the sheer numbers of people to be re-housed. However, in recent years the Azerbaijani Government has invested considerably in building more permanent homes for these displaced people, in order to improve their quality of life, despite the hope that the families will be able to return to their home villages at some point in the future.