BAKU. Oct 31 (Interfax) - More than 1,000 citizens of Azerbaijan have joined radical groups in Syria and Iraq since 2011; of them, over 300 have died and more than 400 have been stripped of Azerbaijani citizenship, Deputy Chairman of Azerbaijan's State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations Siyavush Heydarov told reporters on Thursday.
The Azerbaijani authorities are working to repatriate Azerbaijani citizens who joined extremists in Syria and Iraq, Heydarov said.
"More than 400 people who joined such groups have had their citizenship annulled since 2011, and more than 110 have been prosecuted. Relevant agencies have also been working to identify and repatriate other people who have become members of these groups. According to our estimates, more than 1,000 people have joined these radical groups. There is also information that more than 300 of them have already died, but the others are hiding in different countries," he said.
Women and children from Azerbaijan are living in Iraqi and Syrian camps, Heydarov said.
"We continue working to bring them back home. Efforts are also under way to repatriate children who have lost their parents. Some of them have already returned home. The children left without parental care are currently being identified. There are children from different regions of Azerbaijan among them. The difficulty here is that we need to find the parents of some children," he said.
No instances of Azerbaijani citizens joining radical groups abroad have been recorded in the past two years, Heydarov said.