ISIS abducts 230 civilians in central Syria

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group has abducted 230 civilians, including at least 60 Christians, in a central Syrian town hours after it captured it, a monitoring group said on Friday, the same day the U.N. approved a resolution aimed at identifying perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks in the war-torn nation which have killed hundreds.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the civilians were taken on Thursday in the town of Al-Qaryatain, which ISIS jihadists had captured late Wednesday.

“Daesh kidnapped at least 230 people, including at least 60 Christians, during a sweep through Al-Qaryatain,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said, using another name for ISIS.

Many of the Christians had fled from Aleppo province, in Syria’s north, to seek refuge in Al-Qaryatain.

He said those abducted were wanted by ISIS for “collaborating with the regime,” and their names were on a list used by the jihadists as they swept through the town.

Families who tried to flee or hide were tracked down and taken by the jihadists, he said.

Al-Qaryatain lies at the crossroads between ISIS territory in the eastern countryside of Homs and areas further west in the Qalamun area.

It had a pre-war population of 18,000, including Sunni Muslims and around 2,000 Syriac Catholics and Orthodox Christians.

According to a Syrian Christian who lives in Damascus but is originally from Al-Qaryatain, the town’s Christian population has dropped to only 300.

In May, masked men abducted Syrian priest Jacques Mourad from the Syriac Catholic Mar Elian monastery in Al-Qaryatain, near the ISIS-captured ancient city of Palmyra.

Mourad, who was known to help both Christians and Muslims, was preparing aid for an influx of refugees from Palmyra.