ISIS frees 37 kidnapped elderly Assyrian Christians: NGO

ISIS group  has released 37 elderly Assyrian Christians on Saturday, who were among the 200 people abducted by the militants in February in northeastern Syria. Most of them were women and elderly men. An NGO said on Saturday.

There releases is the result of negotiations carried out by elders from Arab tribes that had mediated with Daesh for their release, and still  negotiations were continuing to secure the freedom of the remaining.  The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Assyrian Monitor group said the captives had been returned to the town of  Khabur region of Hasakeh province in northeastern Syria and they were in good health.

Most of the captives were from other towns in Khabur. The former hostages were among a group of 220 Assyrians captured by Daesh when they overran parts of the region in February but Kurdish forces later expelled them.

Before the country’s conflict began they were about 30,000 among Syria’s 1.2 million Christians who lived mostly in 35 villages in Hasakeh.

According to monitoring groups the Daesh killed three of the Assyrians last month.