Maalula Nuns Appear in Video, Say They're Fine, Will 'Leave in 2 Days'
A group of nuns reportedly abducted from Syria's Maalula appeared Friday in a video broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, in which they reassured that they are in good health and would be released “in two days.”
“We are fine. We're staying at a beautiful villa and we'll leave in two days,” says one of the nuns in the video.
“We left the monastery because of the intensity of shelling … We call for an end to the shelling of churches and mosques … Our hosts are kind and they have taken care of us,” says another nun.
“We will leave in two days,” says a third nun.
A fourth held woman added: “We were treated in a good manner and we're happy because we were evacuated from the monastery.”
A rebel group calling itself the Ahrar al-Qalamoun Brigades said Friday that the nuns were in a safe place, stressing that will not be released before the realization of several demands, topped by “the release of 1,000 Syrian women detainees from the prisons of the Syrian regime.”
Jihadists and opposition fighters on Monday entered the Syrian Christian town of Maalula and took 12 Lebanese and Syrian Greek Orthodox nuns from the Mar Takla Monastery to the Yabrud area in Qalamoun, near Damascus. The Vatican slammed the move as an “abduction.”
Pope Francis called for prayers Wednesday for the nuns. Religious officials in the region have said the women were abducted, but a Syrian opposition activist said they were merely removed for their own safety.
The 12 nuns join two bishops and a priest who are already believed to be held by hardline rebels, deepening concerns that extremists in the opposition's ranks are targeting Christians.
Speaking to a crowd gathered for the pontiff's general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, the pope invited "everyone to pray for the sisters of the Greek Orthodox monastery of Santa Takla in Maalula, Syria, who were taken by force by armed men two days ago."
The Qalamoun region boasts a sizable Christian population and is home to the ancient Christian village of Maalula and its Mar Takla convent. Church leaders and pro-rebel activists said the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front seized the nuns from Mar Takla on Monday.
Maalula was a popular tourist attraction before the conflict began. Some of its residents still speak a version of Aramaic, a language spoken by Jesus.
Source: Naharnet
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