Syrian Refugee Children Find Safe Haven in Moscow

Deprived of an education back home due to a nearly four-year war that has already claimed more than 200,000 lives, dozens of Syrian refugee children are trying to catch up with their Russian peers by studying in a makeshift school near Moscow.



The kids, between the ages of 7 and 13, eagerly learn Arabic, English and Russian, as well as Math and History. Their teachers, themselves refugees from the Syrian conflict, work as volunteers at the school in Noginsk, about an hour and a half from Moscow.



Thousands of Syrians have deep ties to Russia's North Caucasus, which saw a mass exodus of ethnic Circassians during the Russian-Circassian war of 1763-1864.



Since the conflict in Syria broke out in 2011, several thousand Syrian refugees have come to Russia, though bureaucratic hurdles in the asylum process prompted some to move on to Europe.



According to data from the United Nations, more than 3 million Syrians have fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. Another 150,000 have sought asylum in the EU, and about 6.5 million remain displaced within the country.



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