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Around 30 Russian children will be evacuated from Iraq in August — ombudsperson

A Russian Emergencies Ministry's aircraft has earlier evacuated 33 Russian children, aged from one to four years, from Iraq
Rusian ombudsperson for children's rights Anna Kuznetsova Mikhail Klimentyev/Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS
Rusian ombudsperson for children's rights Anna Kuznetsova
© Mikhail Klimentyev/Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS

MOSCOW, July 11. /TASS/. Around 30 Russian children will be in the last group that is planned to be evacuated from Iraq in August, Russian ombudsperson for children's rights Anna Kuznetsova said on Thursday.

"Now we have the following task — to evacuate the last group of children remaining in Iraq. We will carefully prepare for the evacuation, there will be around 30 children," Kuznetsova said.

There is an issue about one child in particular, since his siblings are citizens of another country, she noted. "If a decision is made to grant him citizenship of another country, then we will have 29 children. Another question is about six children from other states, whose parents now want them to have Russian citizenship. If this happens, we will have 35 children," she added.

Kuznetsova stressed that there are also requests to evacuate Russian children from Syria. "We have received over 200 requests to find Russian chidren of different ages in Syria. It is very important to continue working on this," she said.

A Russian Emergencies Ministry's aircraft has earlier evacuated 33 Russian children, aged from one to four years, from Iraq. 

In 2017, an inter-ministerial commission dealing with the return of children from combat zones was established. In December 2018 and February 2019, 57 children were returned to Russia from Iraq due to the efforts of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Emergencies Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the Health Ministry and other ministries.