The Khojaly massacre was the mass killing of Azerbaijanis — mostly civilians, but also armed troops — by local irregular Armenian forces and the 366th Commonwealth of Independent States Guards Motor Rifle Regiment in the town of Khojaly on 26 February 1992. It was one of the four events that defined the war in 1992, along with the Karabakh Armenian seizure of Shusha, the Karabakh Armenian capture of Lachin and the Lachin corridor between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia and the June 1992 Azerbaijani offensive against the Mardakert Province in Nagorno-Karabakh.Khojaly is a formerly Azerbaijani-populated town of some 6,300 people within the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, it had the region's only airport in 1992. The town was subject to the mutual shelling and blockade by Armenian and Azerbaijani forces during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. Without supply of electricity, gas, or water, it was defended by the local forces consisted of about 160 lightly armed men. The local Armenian and CIS forces launched an offensive in early 1992, forcing almost the entire Azerbaijani population of the enclave to flee, and committing what was reported as "unconscionable acts of violence against civilians" as they were fleeing.On the night of 26 February 1992, the Armenian forces seized the town, taking prisoner or killing the civilians remaining in it. At the same time, a large number of Azerbaijani civilians, interspersed with armed troops, were trying to escape the town and moving towards the Azerbaijani-controlled territories. However, local Armenian forces fired upon the fleeing Azerbaijani refugees, resulting in hundreds of deaths.The massacre was one of the turning points in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The death toll claimed by the Azerbaijani authorities is 613 civilians, including 106 women and 63 children. According to Human Rights Watch, it resulted in death of at least 200 Azerbaijanis, though it is possible that as many as 500–1,000 may have died.