Azerbaijan has launched a military operation against Nagorno-Karabakh, killing scores of people, including many children.

The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, called "in the strongest terms for an immediate end to the fighting, de-escalation, and stricter observance of the 2020 ceasefire and principles of international humanitarian law," said his spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

Azerbaijan launched a new military operation on Tuesday. Officials claimed the destruction of military facilities belonging to Armenia’s security forces.

Dozens of people are reported to have been killed and more than 200 wounded in Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan launched what it described as an “anti-terrorist operation” after months of rising tensions in the disputed South Caucasus region.

Armenian officials in Nagorno-Karabakh said the region’s capital of Stepanakert and other villages were “under intense shelling”. The region’s military said Azerbaijan was using aircraft, artillery and missile systems and drones in the fighting.

Armenia has sent a request to the United Nations Security Council for an emergency meeting on Azerbaijan’s military actions in Nagorno Karabakh, the spokesperson for Armenia’s foreign ministry has said.

The “meeting will convene on September 21”, Ani Badalyan said on X, the platform once known as Twitter.