As dusk fell, the sound of wailing carried on the soft evening breeze. Women filled the courtyard of a small house, keening over a coffin draped in the national flag. Men clustered in hushed groups in the narrow alley outside.
The working-class neighborhood of Ahmedli, in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, was mourning its first martyred son since war broke out anew between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the southern Caucasus three weeks ago. Eldar Aliyev, 26, a manager in one of Azerbaijan’s biggest finance companies and a volunteer soldier, had spent barely two weeks at the front before returning home in a coffin.
Azerbaijan has not released numbers of military casualties, but funerals are underway, bringing the war home to its people. As well as Aliyev, a colonel of the army was also buried in Baku on Sunday.