Tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians are likely to flee Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia says it is prepared to take them in after Azerbaijan’s military victory last week in a conflict dating to the fall of the Soviet Union.

About 120,000 civilians in the region in the South Caucasus will leave for Armenia because they do not want to live in part of Azerbaijan and fear “the danger of ethnic cleansing”, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Sunday.

“The likelihood is increasing that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh will see expulsion from their homeland as the only way out,” he said.

Armenia “will lovingly welcome our brothers and sisters from Nagorno-Karabakh”, Pashinyan added, according to international media report.

Armenia said more than 200 people were killed and 400 wounded in Azerbaijan’s military operation last week. The fate of the ethnic Armenian population, which make up the majority of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population, has raised concerns in Moscow, Washington and Brussels.

Separatist fighters from Nagorno-Karabakh – a territory internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but previously governed by the breakaway Republic of Artsakh – were forced to declare a ceasefire on Wednesday after a decisive 24-hour military operation by the much larger Azerbaijani military.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev declared victory over the enclave on Thursday, saying it was fully under Baku’s control and the idea of an independent Nagorno-Karabakh was finally confined to history.

He promised to guarantee the rights and security of Armenians living in the region, but years of hate speech and violence between the rivals have left deep scars. Azerbaijan, which is mainly Muslim, has said the Armenians, who are Christian, can leave if they want.