GROZNY, December 30. /TASS/. A special flight with children from Chechnya, Moscow, Penza and Dagestan, who were kept at Iraqi prisons, has taken off from Baghdad for Moscow, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov reported via his Telegram channel on Sunday.
Addressing his traditional end-of-the-year news conference earlier in December, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged that efforts would be continues to return children of Russian citizens back to Russia from Syria. He also recalled that Kadyrov was in charge of such efforts.
"Several minutes ago, a special flight took off from Baghdad’s international airport and now is heading for Moscow. It is carrying 30 children who were kept at prisons in Iraq until today. Twenty-four of them are from Dagestan, three are from Chechnya and the rest are from Moscow and Penza. Efforts to return Russian children to their homeland are being taken at the instruction from Russian President Vladimir Putin and have never been stopped for a minute," Kadyrov wrote.
Earlier, the Chechen authorities helped evacuate more than 100 women and children from Russia and citizens of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
Currently, more than 2,000 women and children from Russia are to be evacuated from Syria and Iraq where they were taken by their husbands and fathers who had sided with terrorist organizations.