All news

Human Rights Council urges to help Russian children in Iraq's combat zone

On August 4, Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov said his representatives had visited the Al-Salihiya orphanage in Baghdad, where six presumably Russian children had been found

MOSCOW, August 14. /TASS/. A meeting organized by the Russian Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights has urged immediate action to help Russian children who have found themselves in a combat zone in Iraq, the council’s press service said on Monday.

"Participants in the meeting spoke in favor of urgent measures to help small Russian nationals. According to the Iraqi branch of UNICEF, about 3,800 children were separated from their families during the operation to liberate Mosul. We don’t know how many Russians are among them," the press service said.

It said Iraqi Ambassador to Russia Haidar Mansour Hadi, who attended the meeting, pledged it that the country’s authorities were ready to offer maximum assistance in saving the children’s lives.

Also taking part in the meeting were presidential council’s executive secretary Yana Lantratova, chairman of the permanent commission of the council for the protection of human rights abroad, Andrey Yurov, as well as council’s member and president of the Center for Strategic Research on Religion and Politics in the Modern World, Maxim Shevchenko.

The meeting heard a report by the Chechen representative in the Russian upper house of parliament, Ziyad Sabsabi, about the results of is misison in Iraq to return Russian children to the homeland. "The meeting gave high marks to the mission of Sabsabi, who several day ago brought four-year-old Bilal back from a dangerous region," said the report of the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights.

On August 4, Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov wrote on his Telegram channel that his representatives had visited the Al-Salihiya orphanage in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, where six presumably Russian children had been found. Kadyrov also said that "there are 35 to 40 other Russian nationals and up to 100 citizens of the CIS countries in other orphanages in Baghdad," as well as about the same number in the Mosul area and Kurdistan.

"Family members of two girls and two boys, whom we found in Iraq, have responded to our call. The recognized Sultan Aliyev, Ali Magomedov, as well as sisters Fatima and Khadizhat. They come from Khasavyurt and Makhachkala. In accordance with my instructions, Sabsabi will soon head to Iraq carrying all the documents," Kadyrov wrote.

In early August, four-year-old Bilal Tagirov from Chechnya, who had been taken to Syria by his father two years ago, was returned to Russia through the assistance of Chechnya’s head.

Family members of four children who were previously discovered in an Iraqi orphanage have turned up, Kadyrov wrote on Instagram on August 10, adding that these people are from Dagestan. He said Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federation Council’s Committee for Foreign Affairs Ziyad Sabsabi, who originally comes from Syria’s Aleppo, will soon head to Iraq to provide assistance to the Russian children.