One more Ukrainian family previously trapped in war-torn Syria has been successfully returned to their homeland, according to the country’s authorities.
A special flight arrived in Kyiv on Oct. 19, with a Crimean woman identified under the name Iman, as well as her four kids, onboard.
At Kyiv Boryspil International Airport, Iman said they all felt fine and were thankful for the recovery. The family expects to get further assistance in obtaining paperwork, housing, a job and school education for the children.
According to Ukraine’s President’s Office, the family spent over two years held in the Al Roj refugee camp in northeast Syria close to the Iraqi border. As a result of the ongoing multisided war that has claimed at least 350,000 lives since 2011, the area in the country’s Al Hasakah governorate is controlled by Kurdish formations.
This was the fourth successful operation to evacuate Ukrainian nationals from Syria, an effort that began in late 2020 with the assistance of Ukraine’s honorary consulate in the city of Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.
As of now, all Ukrainians previously held at the Al Roj have been brought back home, according to Roman Mashovets, the deputy head of the President’s Office.
However, 11 more families who were previously held at another refugee settlement of Al Hawl, are still in Syria. Similarly to Al Roj, the camp holds a large portion of civilians interned from territories previously controlled by the Islamic State, the notoriously brutal Islamist group defeated by a multinational war effort in 2019.
According to Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar, all of them have been recovered from the facility and prepared for evacuation, but nonetheless have to endure a COVID-19 quarantine stay. The fifth and the final operation is being planned for the “nearest future,” Malyar said on Oct. 19.
“After this, all Ukrainian nationals will be evacuated from northeast Syria,” she said.
According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs official Roman Nedilsky, the Ukrainian authorities also earlier recovered all Ukrainians from Afghanistan, which recently saw a prompt downfall of Western-backed government to the Islamist movement Taliban in August.
But according to multiple reports in media, as well as an October report from Human Rights Watch organization, dozens of Ukrainian citizens are still stranded in the embattled country.
