The Islamic State has freed 19 of the 220 Assyrian Christians it abducted Feb. 23 in northeastern Syria.
Local leaders said those who were freed met with church officials Sunday in a cathedral in the city of Hasaka, The New York Times reported. Hundreds of other captives remain unaccounted for, but Sunni Arab local leaders are mediating between Assyrian Christian leaders and the Islamic State militants to get the remaining victims released.
Some reports claim that the Assyrian Christian leaders exchanged money with the militants for the releases, according to the BBC. The Assyrian Human Rights Network said the victims were released after a Sharia court ordered them to pay an unspecified amount of money as a tax on non-Muslims.
All the freed captives were about 50 years old or older and arrived at the Church of the Virgin Mary on Sunday. Of the 19 freed, 16 are men and three are women, all from the village of Tal Ghoran. They were transported to Hasaka by bus from the IS-held town of Shaddadeh.
The Islamic State kidnapped men, women and children on Feb. 23 from 12 villages on the southern bank of the Khabur River, near the town of Tal Tamr. About 40,000 Assyrians lived in Syria, among the country's 1.2 million Christians, before the civil war erupted in 2011. Since the abductions, about 1,000 Assyrian families have fled the country.
The United States-led coalition bombed the Islamic State near Hasaka for the third day in a row, which suggests that the U.S. is stepping up its response to the advance of the Islamic State since the kidnappings, The New York Times reported.
