More than 200 people from BiH fighting for ISIL

Vlado Azinović, political scientist and professor at the Faculty of Political Science in Sarajevo, four months ago, together with Muhamed Jusić, published a study titled "The Call of War in Syria and the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Contingent of Foreign Fighters", reports the Patria News Agency.  

In this study, Azinović and Jusić addressed the number of people from the Balkan region who went to fight for the Islamic State in the Middle East.

The study identified 156 men, 36 women, and 25 children, citizens or of origin from Bosnia and Herzegovina, who stayed in Syria or Iraq from the end of 2012 to the end of 2014.

Among them, 48 men and 3 women returned to BiH by the beginning of 2015. At least 26 people, whose identities were recorded, died in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. Of the total 156 men, almost one third, 44 of them, were previously known to the police and courts.

The largest number of trips to Syria and returns from Syria to Bosnia and Herzegovina were registered during 2013, and the most common way to go to that country was by plane from Sarajevo, via Istanbul, to Gaziantep or Hatay, and from there by land to Kilis and Azaz, or Reyhanli and Bab al-Hawa.

The motives for leaving are varied, but it is assumed that most volunteers go to the battlefields in Syria and Iraq because they see it as the fulfillment of a religious duty. However, from a series of individual examples, it is clear that a significant number of other factors (economic, social, generational, and others) encourage, facilitate, or accelerate such departures.