Islamic State releases families but kidnaps more Christians

Islamic State terrorists have released some of the Christian families they seized from north-east Syria last month but have kidnapped more, according to the papal representative to Syria.

Archbishop Mario Zenari initially told the Rome-based AsiaNews that 52 Christian families held by Islamic State (IS) had been released without a ransom having been paid. IS had seized the Assyrian families in attacks on a string of Christian villages.

The total number thought to have been taken last month is believed to exceed 350, according to the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). Around 20 were released in the first few days afterwards and ransoms are known to have been paid for 19 of the abductees.

But speaking again on Monday evening, the Italian archbishop said new reports suggested that some of the families he had been told would be freed were still being held. According to his source, the captives had been allowed on to a bus to leave when their kidnappers came under attack from Kurdish fighters. “IS still holds many families [and] took some more from three villages,” Archbishop Zenari added.

It is unclear what might happen next, but Archbishop Zenari was keen to point out that the case of these Christian families “is not comparable” to the beheadings of the 21 Copts in Libya.

AsiaNews claimed abducted Christians in Syria are afforded some respect by Syrian IS fighters, because local Muslims respect the Church’s commitment to the poor. But the same is not true of IS fighters from other Islamic countries like Chechnya, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. As many as 70 per cent  of IS terrorists in Syria are from outside the country.

The head of the country’s Caritas agency, Bishop Antoine Audo of Aleppo, told the Catholic aid agency Cafod that half of Syrians are homeless or refugees in neighbouring countries. “Eighty per cent of the workforce in Aleppo have no work. The rich have left, the middle class have become poor and the poor have become destitute,” he said.

Sr Annie Demerjian, who is co-ordinating aid work in north-east Syria for ACN, said local people were forced to sell their belongings to buy basic provisions.

A German bishop hit out at nations that trade with Saudi Arabia, whose nationals he said were “to a large extent” financing IS, and funding radical Islam in Africa. Bishop Stefan Zekorn, an auxiliary in Münster, was speaking after a German government trade delegation visited Riyadh.

n Iraqi and Syrian Christian refugees have been offered shelter by Churches in the Czech Republic and Germany, writes Jonathan Luxmoore. At least 1,500 Czech families have pledged to take in Christian adults and children fleeing IS, the CTK said.