HRW: Daesh Holding 27 Hostage in Syria’s Sweida

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that members of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group are holding 27 people captive in Syria’s Southwestern province of Sweida, condemning the hostage-taking as a “war crime”.

News ID: 72008

Date: 26 August 2018 - 15:24

TEHRAN (Defapress)- The international organization said on Saturday that the abductees mostly consist of women and children, who were kidnapped on July 25 when Daesh launched a massive assault on the Druze community in the province and killed more than 250 people.

HRW stressed that the militants are holding the civilians hostage in order to use them as bargaining chips in negotiations with the Damascus government and Russia.

“Civilian lives should not be used as bargaining chips,” Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at HRW, stressed.

The militants executed one of more than 30 people it abducted from the city of Sweida in Southern Syria during a brazen attack last month. Muhannad Dhouqan Abu Ammar, a 19-year-old student, had been executed by the group. A 65-year-old woman also died earlier this month.
Moreover, two women managed to escape captivity.

The Daesh has been holding dozens of Druze women and children hostage since it abducted them from their village in Syria's Southern province of Sweida, according to a monitor.

More than 250 people were killed late July when Daesh militants, who lost all of their urban bastions in the Arab country late last year, launched a brutal attack against civilians in rural areas inhabited by the Druze minority. According to the monitor, at least 36 women and children were kidnapped by terrorists during the attacks.

Rami Abdel-Rahman, the head of the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights noted that another 17 men from the attacked areas were still unaccounted for, but added that it was unclear whether they had also been abducted.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The Damascus government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies are aiding Takfiri terrorist groups wreaking havoc in the country.

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