Mother superior says nuns abducted from convent have been taken with three other women to town held by rebels

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Opposition fighters have abducted 12 nuns from a predominantly Christian village near Damascus and taken them to a rebel-held town, the mother superior of a Syrian convent said on Tuesday.

Febronia Nabhan, Mother Superior at Saidnaya Convent, said that the nuns and three other women had been seized from another convent in the predominantly Christian village of Maaloula and taken to the nearby town of Yabroud on Monday.

On the same day, Syrian rebels had captured large parts of Maaloula, around 40 miles north-east of the capital, after three days of fighting.

The state news agency Sana reported on Monday that six nuns, including the Maaloula convent's mother superior Pelagia Sayaf, were trapped in the nunnery.

A tourist attraction before the civil war erupted in March 2011, some of Maaloula's residents still speak a version of Aramaic, a biblical language spoken by Jesus. In September, rebels seized parts of the town only to be driven out within a few days by government forces.

News of the kidnapping came as Syria's state TV reported that a suicide attacker detonated his explosive vest in an unspecified government institution in Damascus, killing four and wounding 17. The TV station gave no further details about the blast in the central Jisr Abyad neighbourhood.