Bishop Yuhanna Ibrahim, head of the Syriac Orthodox church in Aleppo, and Bishop Boulos Yaziji, of the Greek Orthodox church in the city, were abducted by gunmen Syrian state media called “terrorists”. Later the kidnappers were described as “Chechen mercenaries” fighting with Jabhat al-Nusra, an extreme Islamist group that has links with al-Qaida. The anti-Assad opposition countered at once that it believed the regime was implicated.
Christians make up about 10% of Syria’s 23 million population and have traditionally been regarded as loyal to a regime that strictly limited political freedoms for all citizens but guarantees their religious worship. Like other minorities, they have been mainly neutral or loyal to Assad since the uprising began two years ago. Still, an estimated 300,000 – perhaps a third of the total – have already fled abroad.
Samir Nassar, the Maronite archbishop of Damascus, warned dramatically earlier this month that Christians in Syria now faced a choice between “two bitter chalices: to die or leave”.
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