IS frees 37 kidnapped Syrian Christians: NGO
The Islamic State group on Saturday released
37 Syrian Christians, most of them women,
who were among more than 200 people
kidnapped more than eight months ago, an
NGO said.
The Assyrian Monitor for Human Rights
said the group of freed Assyrian
Christians included 27 women and 10
men, most of them elderly.
They arrived on Saturday morning in
the town of Tal Tamr in the Khabur
region of Hasakeh province in
northeastern Syria, the group said.
The releases were confirmed by the
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
monitor, which said most of those freed
were from other towns elsewhere in the
Khabur region.
The former hostages were among a
group of 220 Assyrians captured by IS
when they overran parts of the Khabur
region in February.
Since then, a trickle of the prisoners
have been released, with between 140
and 150 believed to still be held by IS.
The Assyrian Monitor said the releases
were the result of negotiations carried
out by the church, but other reports
suggest IS has been paid to free the
hostages.
Assyrians numbered about 30,000
among Syria’s 1.2 million Christians
before the country’s conflict began. They
lived mostly in 35 villages in Hasakeh.
In February, IS overran many of the
villages, but Kurdish forces later expelled
them.
IS has captured hundreds of hostages,
including Christians from different sects,
in territory it controls in Syria and Iraq.
Elsewhere, the Britain-based
Observatory said the toll in Thursday’s
air strikes on the town on Albu Kamal on
the Syrian border with Iraq had risen to
49 people, at least 31 of them civilians.
The monitoring group had previously
said at least 22 people were killed in the
strikes, but it was not able to confirm
who was behind the attacks.
Russia, Syria’s government and a US-led
coalition are all carrying out air strikes
on Syrian territory, sometimes operating
in the same areas.
The Observatory said at least four of
those killed in the raids on the IS-held
town were children.
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