Moscow hosted a picket demanding immediate evacuation of Circassians from Syria

Today, in Krasnopresnenskaya Zastava Square, near the monument to Heroes of Revolution in Moscow, a picket was held with an appeal to Russian authorities to promptly evacuate Circassian from the war-torn Syria. The picket gathered 20 participants.

According to one of its organizers, the today's action was a continuation of a series of solo pickets, held at the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), where every day a new picketer appeared with a poster listing the demands to the authorities.

This time the picketers were holding posters in the Russian, Adyg and English languages reading: "We demand to return Circassians to their historical homeland!", "We demand a simplified procedure for entry of Syrian Circassians to the Russian Federation!", "Russia, help your countrymen in Syria!" and others.

As noted by Beslan Kobakhiya, an adviser to the president of the World Congress of the Abkhaz-Abazin Nation, in his comment to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, today Syria has more than 200,000 members of the Circassian Diaspora, which includes different nationals from the Caucasus.

"There's no exact statistics, but number is higher than the official 120,000 – that's for sure. Among them there are Armenians, Chechens, Dagestanis, Ossetians, Abkhazians, Abazins and other natives of the Caucasus. Only the Armenian Diaspora makes about 100,000. Plus to this statistics, there are more than 120,000 Russian citizens, that is, people who have Russian passports. Naturally, these events cannot leave Circassians around the world indifferent," said the source of the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.