Russia ‘repatriates’ fresh batch of 27 IS children from Iraq

BAGHDAD: A Russian official said Sunday that Moscow had repatriated a fresh batch of children whose mothers are being held in Iraq for belonging to the Islamic State group.

“Twenty-seven Russian children have been repatriated from Baghdad”, a Russian foreign ministry official said.

Thirty other children were sent back to Moscow in late December.

The fathers of the children were killed during three years of fighting between the jihadists and Iraqi troops, the official said.

IS seized large swathes of Iraq in a lightning 2014 offensive, before the government dislodged the jihadists from urban centres and eventually declared victory in December 2017.

The Kremlin announced in early January that 115 Russian children aged below ten -along with eight aged between 11 and 17 -- were still in Iraq.

Iraqi law allows detainees to be held with their offspring until the age of three, but older children have to live with relatives.