19 Christians FREED by ISIS after being paid ransom

Very good news for once as some Christians were released by ISIS:

Islamic State group (IS or ISIS) jihadists on Sunday freed 19 of the 220 Assyrian Christians they took hostage in Syria last week, after a ransom was paid for their release, activists said.

“Nineteen Assyrian hostages arrived on Sunday at the Church of Our Lady in Hasakeh after they were released by IS,” said Osama Edward, the director of the Assyrian Network for Human Rights.

“They arrived on two buses from Shaddadeh,” the IS (stronghold in the northeastern province of Hasakeh where they had been detained, he toldAFP.

Edward said an IS religious court decided on Saturday to release the Christians in exchange for a sum of money for each family that IS considers as jizya, or tax, paid by non-Muslims.

He was unable to say how much was paid but recalled that in November IS released Assyrians after receiving payments of $1,700 per person.

The activist said negotiations for the release of all hostages began on Saturday between Assyrian officials and Arab Muslim tribal chiefs.

Last week, IS kidnapped 220 Assyrians in the Tal Tamr area where the extremist Islamist group has seized control of 10 Christian villages, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

There have been many protests all over the world to raise awareness about the genocide of Christians in the Middle East by Islamists, but the media has given them very little coverage.


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