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More than 100 children hope to return to Russia from Syria — Chechen leader

Another 300 children from Russia are still staying in the camps controlled by the Western coalition

GROZNY, August 29. /TASS/. Chechnya’s government is arranging a return to Russia of the 117 Russian children who were taken to Syria illegally, the head of the region, Ramzan Kadyrov wrote in VK social network on Wednesday.

"Work is underway to arrange a return home of 117 children," he wrote. "Another 300 children from Russia are still staying in the camps controlled by the Western coalition."

"I instructed Ziyad Sabsabi [a member of the upper house of Russian parliament representing Chechnya who also is Kadyrov’s representative in the Middle East and North Africa - TASS] to do everything in his power and even beyond it to help them return home," Kadyrov indicated. "These children come from different parts of Russia and really few of them are from Chechnya."

He recalled that these efforts were made at a request from President Vladimir Putin.

Kadyrov also said the Ahmat Kadyrov regional public fund was holding a humanitarian mission in Syria, in the framework of which some 1.5 million people had received various types of aid.

"Apart from humanitarian aid, the fund also gives monthly financial aid to 200 full orphans and to 150 Syrian families," Kadyrov wrote. "We’ve streamlined direct deliveries of relief supplies to Syria from Moscow."

"As many as 2,500 wheelchairs have been brought to the Syrians from China," he went on. "We distributed them at clinics and rehabilitation centers. In cooperation with the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Ahmat Kadyrov fund assists the return of Syrian refugees home from different neighboring countries."

More than a hundred women and children hailing from Chechnya, Dagestan, Tver region and other parts of Russia, as well as the citizens of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan were evacuated from Syria earlier with assistance from the Chechen authorities.

Senator Ziyad Sabsabi heads a specialized workgroup supervising the return of Russians from the Middle East. Chechen human rights activists say in the meantime another several hundred Russian women and children currently stranded in Syria and Iraq are awaiting return home.