The Indian Salesian priest who was kidnapped in Yemen during March 2016, has pleaded for help in an online video posted on Boxing Day.
In the footage a visibly frail Fr Tom Uzhunnalil blames both the Indian Government and Church officials for failing to secure his release. He claims his captors made contact with Indian Government officials several times and yet “I am very sad that nothing has been done seriously in my regard”.
He suggests that, “if I were a European priest, I would have been taken more seriously”, and urged Pope Francis, who appealed for the priest’s release last April, to “please take care of my life; I am very much depressed and my health is deteriorating”.
On the day following the video’s release, India’s minister of state for parliamentary affairs assured Cardinal George Alencherry, Archbishop of Ernakulam-Angamaly of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, that the Government is “doing everything possible”.
Fr Tom was abducted on 4 March in Aden, provincial capital of Yemen, in an attack on a Missionaries of Charity retirement home in which 16 people were killed. Reports that he was crucified by Islamist militants during Holy Week were later discredited.
Photo - You Tube
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