Chechen Orphans Face Extradition from Turkey
Turkish media sources have reported that an elderly Chechen woman and her three grandsons are facing the threat of extradition from Turkey to Russia.
According to the information, Mrs. Khava, an elderly Chechen asylum seeker, said that her son was a member of the Chechen National Liberation Movement and is now dead. His wife left their three sons, one of which has a mental illness, and she has to take care of them. She has been in Turkey for a while and was recently invited to the Turkish police Kumkapi Foreigners Department in Istanbul where she was asked to sign a paper as stating that it is important to have legal status in Turkey. However, it appears that it was a document relating to a voluntary return to Russia. The elderly Chechen woman claims that she cannot understand Turkish and there was no interpreter provided.
“Their father became Shaheed and their mother left them with me. I came to Turkey thinking that it is a Muslim country and it will take care of us. Why are you sending me back to? I don’t have a place to go back to. One child has a mental illness, what will I do now? I am asking the Muslim people of Turkey, you are going to extradite us? Please help me,” said Khava.
The Chechen woman and her three orphan grandsons are now facing extradition. So far there has been no comment from the Turkish authorities.
*Text was written by Waynakh Online and edited by Michael Capobianco
I am very saddened by their situation. Turkey is a well to do developed Muslim Nation. I find it very unsettling for them to send this poor woman with her three grandsons to send back to Russia, where they have nothing and to go back to. Turkey will be sending them to no man’s land, that is anything but human… Hope that some one intervenes in theri favor and let them stay in Turkey…