It has been 32 years since the January 20 massacre, when the Soviet forces entered Azerbaijan’s capital Baku with tanks and massacred civilians on January 20, 1990. Martyrs were commemorated with an official ceremony on the 32nd anniversary of the bloody events. In the commemoration ceremony, Azerbaijanis gathered at the martyrdom and left red carnations on the graves. In memory of those who were martyred, traffic stopped for 1 minute at 12:00 local time. While ships, vehicles and buses on the Caspian Sea coast commemorated the martyrs with sirens and horns, flags were lowered at half-mast in government offices. Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and his wife Mihriban Aliyeva came to the Martyrs’ Lane, visited the graves of the victims of the January 20 massacre, and laid wreaths at the martyrdom monument.
On the January 19 to January 20 night, the USSR army started military operations against Azerbaijan to suppress the uprising that sparked upon the occupation of Azerbaijan by Armenia. While the USSR army opened fire on people, military vehicles were driven over the civilians. A total of 147 people lost their lives in the bloody events, 744 people were seriously injured and 841 people were detained illegally. The events of Bloody January, which accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union, are considered a turning point in which the fire of independence was lit after the Soviet captivity.