Govt sends Chechen children found in Mosul to orphanages
Children used by the Islamic State to carry out suicide attacks.
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Iraq’s social affairs ministry referred a group of Chechen children on Sunday to orphanages in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The ministry’s “special needs” director, Abeer al-Chalabi, said in press statements that the children were found in areas that had been under Islamic State militants’ control and later recaptured by Iraqi forces. They were given first aid and transferred to state-run orphanages.
She said the measure was coordinated with the United Nations children organization (UNICEF) and the ICRC.
“The admitted children did not possess any identification documents, and were therefore considered of unknown descent,” said Chalabi. She added that the ministry was working on a plan to socially rehabilitate the children found at war-ravaged areas.
The Iraqi government’s eight-month war against IS in Mosul concluded with victory earlier this month, but left hundreds of civilians dead and more than 900.000 displaced. U.N. and human rights organizations have regularly shed light on children traumatized by the conflict.
Foreign IS members, who declared a self-styled Islamic “caliphate” in a third of Iraq and Syria in 2014, have notoriously maintained sex slaves or forced local women to get married them.
Last week, Nineveh province council official Hassan al-Allaq was quoted saying that children of Islamic State fighters could either face deportation to home countries or referral to orphanages.