Israel’s Druze spiritual leader Moafak Tarif met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov on Tuesday in Moscow to seek the help of Russia in the release of women and children abducted by ISIS in the Sweida region of Syria around two months ago.
Tarif told Asharq Al-Awsat that the visit came within efforts initiated by the Druze community in Israel with several Arab and international parties to stop the terrorist massacre in Sweida.
“Around two months have passed since the massacre, which claimed the lives of 255 people, while the fate of 29 women and children, who have been horribly abducted, is still unknown,” Tarif said.
“We have called on the Syrian government to work for their release. Then, we resorted to the United Nations and to several countries in the world, such as the United States, Germany, Britain and France. Since the beginning of the crisis, we had contacted the Russian Embassy in Tel Aviv, and today we are meeting today with Mr. Bogdanov, who is in charge of the Middle East file in the Russian Foreign Ministry.”
ISIS launched attacks on Druze villages in the province of Sweida at dawn on June 25. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 255 people were killed in the attack: 142 civilians, including 38 children and women, and 113 armed men, most of them from the province, who took up arms to protect their towns and their families. ISIS began its attack by blowing up four suicide bombers in the city.
The terrorist organization abducted 36 civilians, including women and children, during the attack. Four women managed to escape later, while the bodies of two others were found; one was shot in the head and the other was old. Thus, 30 people are still being held by the extremist organization, according to the Observatory, which confirmed that the fate of 17 other men was still unknown.
