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Syria: Kidnapped priest freed


Fr Jacques before his kidnapping

Fr Jacques before his kidnapping

Fr Jacques Murad, the Syrian priest abducted by ISIS in central Syria five months ago, has been set free, Fides reported this morning. Fr Murad was kidnapped at the same time as around 200 other Christians, in May, two months before jihadists captured Qaryatayn, the Christian-Sunni town where Fr Murad lived and served as prior of the ancient monastery of Mar Elian.

Syrian Fr Jihad Youssef from the monastic community of Deir Mar Musa said: "We are grateful to the Lord and give praise to the merciful God for this gift. And we thank all the friends in the world who prayed for Jacques and for our monastic community, Christians, Muslims or others, even those who do not believe or believe otherwise, for their solidarity and sympathy".

"We ask for the prayers and solidarity of every man and woman of good will for peace in Syria and around the world and especially for all the people who have been abducted or have disappeared".

Fr Jacques was released yesterday, 11 October. According to local sources, he is physically well and yesterday celebrated Sunday Mass in Zaydal, in the south-east of Homs.

Father Murad is part of the monastic community of Deir Mar Musa, founded by the Roman Jesuit Paolo Dall'Oglio, who disappeared in northern Syria on July 29, 2013 while he was in Raqqa, a stronghold of IS.

The monastic settlement of Mar Elian, on the outskirts of Quaryatayn, had been an oasis of peace and hospitality in the heart of a war zone. Father Jacques, along with a Sunni lawyer, had acted as mediators to ensure that the urban center of 35,000 inhabitants were spared for long periods by fighting between the army and government anti-Assad militants.

Hundreds of refugees, including more than a hundred children under ten years of age had been welcomed at the monastery. Fr Jacques and his community had managed to get food and other supplies for them by seeking the help of Muslim donors.

Then, last August, the jihadists of the Islamic State took control of the area and devastated the monastery. During their offensive in the south-east of Homs, the jihadists also took hostage about 270 Christians and Muslims in the area of Qaryatayn. In recent days, a video was released on jihadist websites which shows a group of Christians in Qaryatayn while they participate in the meeting in which they had to sign a "payment contract" to continue living in their homes, in the territory controlled by the self-proclaimed Islamic Stat .

Photographs of that meeting, which took place in a conference room in Qaryatayn, were released at the end of August. Fr Jacques was seen in several of them.

See earlier report: ICN 24 May 2015 Syria: Another priest abducted www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=27514

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