Moscow has Not Allowed Any Wives of ISIS Fighters from Russia to Return This Year, Chechen Rights Activist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 14 – There are several thousand Russian women in Syria now unable to return home after being taken there by their ISIS militant husbands, according to Kheda Saratova, a member of the Chechen council on human rights. Indeed, she says, since January 1, 2018, not a single such woman has been allowed to come home.

            Moscow has allowed 115 of their children to return in highly publicized cases, she adds; but the women remain in limbo even though they personally have not been guilty of anything except trying to keep their families together, Anastasiya Kurilova and Valeriya Mishina report in Kommersant (kommersant.ru/doc/3798924).

                People on the ground in Syria tell her, Saratova continues, that there approximately 7,000 “Russian widows” in Idlib alone. Of these as many as half are from the North Caucasus. And each has four to five children. The women have made their way to that region in the hopes that coming back to Russia.

            Last year, the Russian authorities agreed to have about 90 return; but this year, the Chechen rights activist says, the FSB has intervened and declared that allowing the women and children to come home is “incorrect.” And so the flow has stopped, resulting in untold human suffering for the families. 

            FSB chief Aleksandr Bortnikov a week ago said that the number returning was increasing but added that “it is no secret that these women and even children are being used by the leaders of terrorist groups as recruiters, suicide bombers, or executors of terrorist actions and also as links” among groups.

            Saratova says “this information is somewhat incorrect.”  The women she has been in contact with are quite ready to accept punishment but want to be put in Russian prisons rather than continue in Syria where their fate is far from clear.  Thirty-four have been sent to prison by Baghdad. They are also ready to testify as to why no one should believe the ISIS terrorists.

            Unfortunately for those convicted in Syria, there is no possibility of being sent home to serve their sentences in Russia. The Iraqi ambassador to Moscow says there does not exist any agreement between the two countries which would allow for that. Russia seems ready to do more for children, the Chechen activist says, but not for their mothers.