Nagorno-Karabakh fears grow as residents appeal for aid

US senators are leading calls for an international observer mission to the Azerbaijani enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh as conditions worsen for its ethnic Armenian residents.

Democrat Gary Peters, leading a delegation to the area, said people there were "very fearful".

Food and medicine are running low in the main city, Stepanakert.

However, the International Red Cross said it managed to deliver 70 tonnes of relief aid on Saturday.

It was the first convoy to reach the disputed territory since Azerbaijan captured it in a lightning operation five days ago.

Russia has also sent aid. Earlier, Moscow said Armenian fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh had started to give up their weapons to Russian peacekeepers.

Mr Peters said on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border: "I am certainly very concerned about what's happening in Nagorno-Karabakh right now, I think there needs to be some visibility."

"There needs to be visibility about what's happening," he said, adding that statements from authorities in Azerbaijan's capital Baku amounted to "nothing to see, nothing to worry about" and should be tested.

Ethnic Armenians living in Karabakh have told the BBC that conditions in Stepanakert - known as Khankendi by Azerbaijanis - are critical.

They said they were essentially besieged in the region, with little food, electricity or fuel, and called on the outside world to help them.

Tens of thousands of people have sought refuge in the city, where power cuts are frequent.

Several thousand people are sleeping in tents or the open air near Stepanakert airport.

Families say they have been cut off from each other by the Azerbaijani army and do not know if their relatives are dead or alive.

"I don't know anyone who wants to stay here," one resident, Siranush Sargsyan, told the BBC.

"I have very close elderly relatives who lost their sons in previous wars and they prefer to die here," she added.

Baku insists that the whole issue is now an internal matter for Azerbaijan.

Jason Straziuso, a spokesman for the International Committee for the Red Cross in Geneva, said the aid delivered to the enclave on Saturday included wheat, salt and yeast.

"With those ingredients, you can imagine that now, communities are going to be able to make bread," he said.

"From where I am sitting, everything I have seen internally, the ceasefire is holding," he added.

"We have open channels of communication with all sides and we're being allowed to carry out this humanitarian work and we expect there to be more in the coming days."

Meanwhile, five Russian peacekeepers are reported to have been shot dead in an incident that apparently involved Azerbaijani forces.

Images posted on social media showed bullet holes riddling the rear window of the vehicle which the Russian soldiers were travelling.

Azerbaijan is already burying its casualties of the "special operation". On Friday, the BBC saw 12 fresh servicemen's graves in one Baku cemetery.

At least 25 more grave places were being prepared. According to military personnel present at the cemetery, Azerbaijan lost several dozens of soldiers during the hostilities.