catholicculture.org and abouna.org

Syria: There were five priests in Aleppo, two died of COVID-19

An Islamic militant who surrendered to French police has claimed that he has access to a video proving that a Catholic priest who disappeared in Syria in 2013 is still alive.

Salah A., as he has been identified, has reportedly worked with police to expose Islamic terrorist cells that were planning attacks in Germany. He now says that he wants to talk with Vatican officials about a video that shows Fr. Paolo Dall'Oglio.

Fr. dall'Oglio, who was apparently kidnapped in July 2013, was reportedly seen in Syria late last year. Although there have been many reports about his whereabouts since his disapperance, there have been no confirmed reports about his welfare.

Fr. Dall'Oglio is an Italian Jesuit priest and peace activist. He was exiled from Syria by the Syrian government in 2012 for meeting with members of the opposition and was kidnapped by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on 29 July 2013.

Before his kidnapping, he had served for three decades at the Deir Mar Musa, a 6th-century monastery 80 kilometres north of Damascus. He has been credited with the reconstruction of the Mar Musa complex and its reinvention as a centre of interfaith dialogue.