Around 400 Tunisians Have Returned from War in Syria


Source : Tunisia Live

A total of around 400 Tunisians have returned from fighting in Syria’s ongoing civil war, according to Minister of Interior Lotfi Ben Jeddou. ‘We prohibited nearly 8,000 Tunisians from going to Syria and we do not have an accurate list of those who came back from there. The number is approximately is 400’, Ben Jeddou told radio station Shems FM on Monday. ‘To keep an eye on these Tunisians coming back from Syria, we made a database regarding them,’ Ben Jeddou said Monday. The Syrian civil war started nearly three years ago, and fighters from a variety of countries have gone to aid rebels fighting president Bashar al-Assad. Last year, the Syrian government accused the Tunisian government, then led by the Islamist Ennahdha party, of supporting the rebels. Ennahdha denied this. While President Moncef Marzouki said this weekend that the state will implement security measures against those coming back from Syria, he suggested that other approaches were also possible. ‘We are thinking of an integration and an amnesty formula,’ Marzouki told the Wataniya state television station on Sunday. Marzouki’s office could not be reached for further comment on a potential amnesty policy.