No News on Kidnapped Syria Bishops

Local Editor

Aleppo's Greek Orthodox archdiocese said Wednesday it had no news on two Orthodox bishops kidnapped in Syria, a day after a Christian association said the two men had been released.

"We have no new information," Ghassan Ward, a priest at the archdiocese stated.
"We can say that they haven't been freed," he added of Greek Orthodox Bishop Boulos Yaziji and Syriac Orthodox Bishop Yohanna Ibrahim.

This comes after the French "Oeuvre d'Orient" association said Tuesday that the two, who were seized on Monday, were already at Saint Elias cathedral in Aleppo.
However, Ward stated Wednesday that there had been "no contact with them," adding that "efforts are continuing" to secure their release.

"We are very worried," he said.

The two men were kidnapped en route from the Turkish border, when armed men intercepted the car they were in, forcing them out of the vehicle, Syrian state media and church sources reported.

Sources in both churches said the kidnappers were believed to be Chechen fighters, who stopped the car in an area outside of Aleppo.

"The news which we have received is that an armed group... [of] Chechens stopped the car and kidnapped the two bishops while the driver was killed," an official from the Syriac Orthodox diocese said in a statement posted online.

A source in the Greek Orthodox church said the kidnappers had described themselves as "Chechen rebels."

Meanwhile, Pope Francis on Wednesday appealed for two Orthodox bishops kidnapped in Syria to be freed and for the bloodshed to end, speaking during his general audience on St Peter's Square.

The pope told around 100,000 people present on the square that there were "contradictory reports" about the fate of the two bishops and asked that "they be returned quickly to their communities".

Source: News agencies, Edited by moqawama.org