Iraqi Ambassador To Russia Confirms Last Group Of Russian Children To Be Repatriated Soon

Iraqi Ambassador to Russia Confirms Last Group of Russian Children to Be Repatriated Soon

The process of repatriating children of Russian nationals, who had previously traveled to Iraq to join the extremist groups, nears completion as a final group of returnees will be brought to the homeland in late September, Iraqi Ambassador to Russia Haidar Mansour Hadi told Sputnik on Thursday

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th September, 2019) The process of repatriating children of Russian nationals, who had previously traveled to Iraq to join the extremist groups, nears completion as a final group of returnees will be brought to the homeland in late September, Iraqi Ambassador to Russia Haidar Mansour Hadi told Sputnik on Thursday.

In 2017, Moscow embarked on a mission to return home the Russian children who were smuggled to Iraq and Syria by parents with links to terrorist groups. Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights Anna Kuznetsova, whose office is running the return efforts, told Sputnik earlier in the month that the last group of Russian children would be repatriated in the end of September.

"This month, I don't know when exactly, but this month. I was talking to [Russian] Ambassador [to Iraq] Maksim Maksimov and he also told me that this month would be the last [group] of Russian children and then will have that issue closed," Hadi said, when asked how the repatriation process is going.

Up to 30 Russian children are set to be brought back in the final mission, the ambassador added.

In July, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow had managed to take back 90 Russian children from Iraq but that about 30 more remain in the middle Eastern country.