By Michael Ireland, Senior Reporter, ASSIST News Service answritermike@gmail.com
LIBYA (ANS, July 24, 2015) --
As unconfirmed reports and rumors about the status of three Christians
kidnapped in Libya by the Islamic State (IS) continue to spread in
Egyptian media, a Coptic family waits in fear over the fate of their
loved one, according to Morning Star News (http://morningstarnews.org).
In an article for the news
outlet, its Middle East Correspondent writes that on Friday (July 17),
an IS (Islamic State) affiliate in Libya known as Islamic State, Barqa
Province, announced that it had kidnapped three men, all of them
Christians. As evidence of their claims, they released photographs of
the three men and photographs of their passport cover pages.
Morning
Star News reports that Bakhit Nageh Efrank Ebeid, 21, was traveling on
July 10 in a 14-seat van from Alexandria, Egypt to Tripoli with a group
of men, most of them Muslims from his hometown of Kom Badar, when IS
militants stopped them in Sirte, Libya, according to Ezz Tawfik, a
Coptic activist and journalist in Upper Egypt. Two other Christians,
Adeola Ibrahim from Nigeria and Sekyere Kofi Frimpong from Ghana, were
also in the van.
“ISIS soldiers were there to
search their car and check their passports,” said Tawfik, who is in
close contact with the victim’s family. “They took all their passports,
and saw his, and asked if he was a Christian, and he said ‘Yes.’ So they
asked him to stand aside and released the Muslims who were in the same
van.”
The news agency said the other two Christians were also taken captive.
Later that day, some of those
who were released called members of Ebeid’s family, who live in Tripoli,
and reported the kidnapping.
“His relatives didn’t know what
to do, especially because his mother is sick, and such news might kill
her, so they didn’t tell his family in Egypt,” Tawfik said.
After IS announced the kidnapping, the family in Egypt became aware of the truth, the agency reported.
Relatives decided to call
Ebeid’s cell phone, but to their horror, an IS militant told them that
they had beheaded the “infidel.” But in a subsequent call, the militants
changed their story and told the family that Ebeid had to pay the Jizya
tax on non-Muslims as ransom, or convert to Islam or be killed.
When his family said they would
pay the Jizya and asked how much it would be, they were told an amount
was being decided, and then the phone connection went dead, according to
family members.
Despite several attempts, all
subsequent efforts to contact the militants though the cell phone and
determine a ransom amount were unsuccessful, according to Romany Nageh,
Ebeid’s brother.
“His phone is still working,
but we were told [by authorities] not to call much because that might
hurt him,” Nageh said. “But our relatives who live in Tripoli call the
phone, and every time somebody answers they make fun of them and hang
up.”
Morning Star News said the last time the family heard from Ebeid was on July 10, just before he crossed into Libya.
“He did call his family on that
day, when he was on his way to Libya and told his family that he was on
his way, and that he is going with a group and it would be safe,”
Tawfik said.
The news agency said no information has been publically available about the other two Christians taken captive.
Morning Star News said Tawfik
explained that untrue and often contradictory reporting in Egyptian
media about Ebeid’s condition has exacerbated the family’s dread.
Several times in the past few days, some news outlets reported that a
ransom amount had been set for Ebeid’s release, while others
simultaneously stated that he had been killed.
Family members said they have
now turned to God, hoping that somehow against the multitude of
conflicting reports, Ebeid is still alive and will survive the ordeal.
“We put the whole situation in
front of God, and after Him the authorities, the ministry of foreign
affairs, and those who are in power,” Ebeid’s brother said.
Morning Star News further
stated that in addition to its shear brutality, IS has become known for
kidnapping Christians and then killing them in graphic videos. In
February, an IS group in Libya released a video in which they beheaded
20 Egyptian Christians and one Christian from Ghana. All the men had
been kidnapped at gunpoint in Sirte a little more than a month prior to
the release of the video.
Two months later, in April, IS
released another video in which they killed approximately 30 Christians,
all of them thought to be from Ethiopia. All were thought to be migrant
workers.
Keeping this in mind, Tawfik
said, going to Libya for work might seem to be a quest for the insane.
But for many people in Egypt and in Ebeid’s village, crushed by
unrelenting poverty, the pull of any job is just too strong. For Ebeid –
impoverished, uneducated, unemployed and engaged to be married for more
than a year – there were three choices, his family said: Go to Libya,
starve or become a thief. He took a chance trying to get to the
relatively safer environs of Tripoli for better job opportunities.
“His father said if it wasn’t
for their extremely poor condition, his son wouldn’t have risked his
life and gone. He wouldn’t have risked his life to travel,” Tawfik said.
Before he visited Ebeid’s home, Tawfik said, he couldn’t understand why he would take the risk to leave.
“I kept asking myself, why did
he do that and go?” he said. “But when I went into their home, I
thought, ‘If I were him, I would do the same to put food on the family
table.’ He is working hard to support and prepare himself to marry his
fiancée, and at the same time support his elderly parents. It is like
those people who get on the boats to Italy, knowing that there is a big
chance that they will die, but because they have nothing in their
country, risk it anyway.”
Photo one: Logo. Photo two: Michael Ireland
Michael Ireland is
a Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service, as well as a
volunteer Internet Journalist and Ordained Minister who has served with
ASSIST Ministries and ASSIST News Service since its beginning in 1989.
He has reported for ANS from Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Israel, Jordan,
China, and Russia. Click http://paper.li/Michael_ASSIST/1410485204 to see a daily digest of Michael's stories for ANS.
** You may republish this and any of our ANS stories with attribution to the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net)
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