More than 400 Chechen volunteers left Russia to join the fighting in Syria on the side of the Takfiri group, ISIL, since the beginning of the war in that region. The fate of most of them for the moment is unknown.

More than 400 Chechen volunteers left Russia to join the fighting in Syria on the side of the Takfiri group, ISIL, since the beginning of the war in that region. The fate of most of them for the moment is unknown.

"A total of 405 people, according to our data, have left Chechnya to join the fighting in Syria on the side of the Islamic State since the beginning of the war in that region," a spokesman for the Russian Interior Ministry told RIA Novosti.

"Among those, 104 have been killed and 44 came back, while the fate of the rest is unknown," the official said, adding that 88 criminal cases have been opened against Chechen residents who fought in Syria.

Syria has been grappling with a deadly crisis since March 2011. The violence fueled by Takfiri groups has so far claimed the lives of over 210,000 people, according to reports. New figures show that over 76,000 people, including thousands of children, lost their lives in Syria last year.

Over 3.8 million Syrians have left their country since the beginning of the crisis. More than 7.2 million Syrians have also become internally displaced, according to the UN.

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