Monday, September 16, 2013

Syria: Diplomatic efforts are under way to find Fr. Dall’Oglio

http://www.jesuit.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Paolo-dallOglio.jpgThe Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is hard at work trying to get Fr.Paolo Dall’Oglio released with the same degree of discretion employed in the case of Italian correspondent Domenico Quirico who was finally released last Sunday after being held captive in Syria since last April. 

In Dall’Oglio’s case however, communication channels remain “fragile and contradictory,” said Italian foreign affairs minister Emma Bonino in a statement to Italian radio station Radio24

This was in answer to a question being asked all over Italy at the moment: Does Domenico Quirico’s release mean there is also hope for Fr. Dall’Oglio, who disappeared from the city of Raqqa in north-eastern Syria on 28 August?
 
In recent weeks the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had referred to these as two very different cases, making it clear that communication with Quirico’s kidnappers had been far more solid. 

In a statement, Quirico himself said that the groups of militia who kidnapped him were different to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) an al-Qaeda affiliate, the main suspect in Fr. Dall’Oglio’s kidnapping. These are just part of the Islamist galaxy of parallel wars and banditry. 

While the Farouq Brigade which kept Quirico hostage is part of the Syrian National Council, ISIS is a fully independent entity which in recent weeks was engaged in violent clashes with the Free Syrian Army. This would explain why it is so hard to obtain any reliable information regarding Fr. Dall’Oglio’s state and whereabouts.
 
What is also worrying is the fact that Syrian opposition activists have pointed the finger at ISIS for the murder of a number of civil society representatives who opposed the radical Islamisation of militia-controlled territories. The most recent case involved the murder of Médecins Sans Frontières surgeon Muhammad Abyad, whose body was found near Aleppo a few days ago. Abyad had been kidnapped.

A part from Fr. Dall’Oglio, the exact whereabouts of the Syro-orthodox bishop Yohanna Ibrahim and Greek Orthodox bishop Boulos Yazigi, who were kidnapped last 22 April also remain unknown. The only information held is that given by someone who had been travelling with the two bishops and witnessed the kidnapping in person. 

Bishop Ibrahim had successfully negotiated the release of some kidnapped persons and was involved in a mission to free Armenian Catholic priest Michel Kayal and Greek Orthodox priest Isaak Moawad who went missing last February. 

Bishop Ibrahim had apparently paid an enormous ransom the day before his kidnapping and was going to a meeting where the hostages were going to be handed over. The person who witnessed the kidnapping said the two bishops were taken away by a group of Chechen guerrilla fighters in a no man’s land between a Free Syrian army checkpoint and another checkpoint controlled by Assad’s troops.

There have been numerous rumours circulating, regarding their whereabouts. Some have given them up for dead, while for others there is still room for hope. 

The latest rumour, which surfaced about a week ago, comes from Turkish intelligence sources. They apparently informed the religious communities represented by the two prelates that they believed the men were still alive, but gave no further details.