List of Northern Caucasus natives captured in Iraq sent to Red Cross

A list with the names of 231 Russian citizens, most of whom are natives of Chechnya and Dagestan, has been handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to resolve the problem of their return from Iraq to their homeland. This has been reported by Joanna Paraschuk, an analyst of the British analytical centre IHS.

A large number of Northern Caucasus natives lived in the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Tal Afar, and they were captured by the Iraqi forces after the liberation of those territories from militants, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by Johanna Paraschuk, an analyst of the British analytical centre IHS, on November 9.

"They are family members of IS* militants, who were captured by the Iraqi forces. There are also Russian-language people among them. I have a list of 231 people from the Russian Federation, and most of them are residents of Chechnya and Dagestan ... who were in Mosul and Tal Afar. Relatives are looking for them. We believe that they, or at least some of them, should be in a camp [visited by agents of the Red Cross]," reported Joanna Paraschuk.

According to her, relatives and journalists are forbidden to enter the camp. Earlier, only Reuters' journalists succeeded in visiting detained foreign citizens kept in an Iraqi prison to the south of Mosul.

"We applied to the Red Cross in Iraq and Russia. However, till present, we got no response yet," stated Joanna Paraschuk.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.