MOSCOW. Jan 29 (Interfax) - European countries are refusing to take their citizens belonging to families of militants who fought for the terrorist organization Islamic State (banned in Russia) from the al-Hawl refugee camp in Syria, the Russian and Syrian interagency coordination headquarters on the return of refugees to Syria said in a joint statement on Wednesday.
"Terrorist organizations are actively recruiting the young people [staying at the al-Hawl camp] to their ranks. However, most European countries are refusing to take their own citizens, family members of militants who earlier fought for IS, from the camp," the headquarters said in the statement, which was signed by its co-chairs, Russian National Defense Control Center head Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev and Syrian Minister of Local Administration and Environment Hussein Makhlouf.
"The teenagers have no opportunity to go to school and, instead of this, start adopting radical Islam and extremism ideas from young years," it said.
The humanitarian situation at the al-Hawl camp, the Hasakah governorate, is complicated "chiefly because of an absence of progress in resolving the problem of returning its residents to their permanent homes. According to the UN Secretariat's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, over 60,000 people are staying at the camp, 96% of them being women and children," it said.
"Only the complete restoration of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity guarantees the liquidation of the refugee camps and the return of ordinary Syrians to normal life at home," the statement said.