Al-Hasakah, August 12, 2015
Militants of the “Islamic State” terrorist organization unexpectedly released 22 kidnapped Assyrian Christians from the Al-Hasakah governorate in Syria, reports the Linga news portal with the reference to the Assyrian Human Rights Network (AHRN).
On Tuesday, August 11, the journalists reported the release by ISIS of 22 Assyrian Christians, including 14 women, after five months of captivity.
According to Osama Edward, founder and director of the Assyrian Human Rights Network, 14 former islamists’ hostages are already heading for their native village of Tel Shamiram, while others are on their way to the Tel Jazira village of the Khabur district in the Al-Hasakah governorate.
“It has become known that release of the faithful became possible through the initiative of the Assyrian Church of the East whose Syrian Diocese’s clergy had for a long time negotiated with the “Islamic State” islamists,” the AHRN press service stressed.
In February this year the IS takfirists made a series of raids on settlements of the Khabur district in the northeastern Syria. As soon as the government troops liberated 14 villages from takfirists in May, representatives of the Assyrian Church started holding negotiations with islamists on the release of around 200 captive Christians. Today 188 Christians from Khabur are still in the hands of the terrorists: the Assyrian men, women, children, and old people.
