Kazakhstan citizen with 4 children evacuated from Syria

A Kazakhstan national has been evacuated from Syria because of fresh clashes between Kurds and Islamists, Tengrinews.kz reports citing the press-secretary of Kazakhstan Foreign Ministry Nurzhan Airmakhanov. According to him, a woman named Nina Khaled was living with four children in Qamishli city of Syria. Because of the clashes she had to cross Syrian-Turkish border on foot with her children on August 10. “Nina Khaled reached the territory of Turkey after walking 4 km. The woman asked for help. The same day the Kazakhstan Embassy in Jordan helped evacuate her. Airplane tickets were provided for her and her children, and yesterday, August 11, at 05:00 a.m. local time she arrived from Istanbul to Almaty,” Aitmakhanov said on the phone. The press-secretary did not specify the citizenship of her minor children and it is yet unclear whether they will be able to stay in Kazakhstan. A similar case happened in June. Kazakhstan citizen Yelena Potapova and her 4 minor childred were evacuated from Syria. According to the Kazakhstan diplomats, there are currently around 40 Kazakhstan citizens in Syria. There could be more of them, as there are people who have not been registered with the consulate. According to the official information, there were 150 Kazakhstan citizens registered in Kazakhstan consulate in Damascus before the evacuation. According to Kazakhstan Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Kairat Sarybai, “support in returning to Kazakhstan (from Syria) has been rendered to 11 citizens and 27 children in the last 6 months. Most of them were women married to Syrian citizens.” “The conflict has been going on for 2.5 years. Our diplomatic and consular facilities in Syria that we were forced to evacuate to Beirut (Lebanon), as well as the diplomatic representative offices in the countries neighboring Syria, are all focused on rendering support in evacuation of Kazakhstan citizens. The most part of Kazakhstan citizens were evacuated 2 years ago. We are evacuating our citizens on a voluntary basis only. Everyone registered in the Consulate are in contact with us,” the diplomat said. According to him, support has rendered to a total of 43 Kazakhstan citizens who found themselves in difficult situations abroad over the last 6 months. 3 citizens who died abroad were delivered to Kazakhstan. By Roza Yessenkulova, Altynai Zhumzhumina