Scottish Catholic Observer

About 230 people, ‘some of who were taken from a church,’ were kidnapped or detained by ISIS when the terrorist group captured the Syrian town of Qaryatain on Friday. Prior to the start of the civil war,

about 18,000 people lived in Qaryatain, about 2000 of them Syriac Catholics and Orthodox Christians.

Following the fighting that took place between ISIS and the Syrian army, at least 1400 families fled the town to safer areas or took shelter in the government-controlled city of Homs, reports the Assyrian Monitor for Human Rights. In May, two priests who ran monasteries in the area, went missing from the town.

Earlier this year, ISIS launched surprise attacks on 35 villages in northeast Syria and took more than 200 Christians captive. Some captives were released in March. ISIS reportedly demanded a $23 million ransom for the release of 240 Christians.

“This is an amount beyond the capacity of a tiny church and community,” an Assyrian Christian leader said. “These captives are poor people who depended on their low income as farmers.”

It is estimated that 600,000 Syrian Christians have fled the country since the fighting began in 2011.