“We are in danger, we could be killed, we beseech our government to bring us back home by Christmas.” After five months of silence, Greta Ramelli and Vanessa Marzullo reappeared in a dramatic video posted on Youtube. The pictures show the two Italian volunteers kidnapped in Syria on July 31, proving that they are still alive, but at the same time by growing concern over their fate. Especially as the Syrian branch of al Qaeda, Al Nusra Front, a few hours later, confirmed to hold them hostage. “A very delicate situation,” according to the 007 Italian. “We Greta Ramelli and Vanessa Marzullo,” says English dropping his eyes the first of the girls in the video, which was shot on 17 December. “We implore our government and its mediators to bring us back home before Christmas.
We are in extreme danger and could be killed,” he says in a tone tried. “The government and its mediators are responsible for our lives,” concludes without ever looking at the camera while the other young Italian stares for a few seconds. The two girls were wearing a long black robe that covers their body and hair but leaves the face (‘abaya’). The speaker is only one of them, Greta, while Vanessa is holding the sheet where it reads the date of Wednesday, December 17, 2014. Compared to photographs circulated on the web before the kidnapping, the two look very skinny and traits particularly drawn. The video is considered authentic by the Italian 007, although some doubt about the date, in the absence of external temporal elements, such as the presence of a newspaper. These latest developments, however, have returned a bit ‘of optimism to the families of kidnapped girls, who live in the provinces of Bergamo and Varese. “It seems the y’re pretty well even if in a difficult condition,” said Salvatore Marzullo, father of Vanessa, stressing that both families are “in touch” with the foreign ministry and they hope to “have good news soon.”
They are distressing, however, the news about the involvement of the Front Nusra Front, the Syrian group linked to al Qaeda who confirmed to hold hostage Greta and Vanessa because, said one of its members to the German media “Italy supports the raid in Syria against us.” Involvement also confirmed the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an NGO based in London that has the pulse of what is happening in the country ravaged by civil war, which since 2011 has resulted in about 200 thousand people dead and over 76 thousand only in 2014, half of which civilians, and in whose vortex ended also the two Italian aid workers and another compatriot, Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, seized at the end of July 2013 and, according to the latest rumors leaked, detained in a prison Isis in Raqqa. Greta and Vanessa on the latest information dated back to September 20, when before it was widespread fear that had fallen into the hands of jihadists and Isis was then came the denial of the Lebanese daily Al Akhbar near the Shiite movement Hezbollah, an ally of the regime Damascus. The newspaper said the two girls had fallen into a trap, kidnapped and then sold by an armed group to another, but they were not in the hands of the Islamic state. The climate of extreme uncertainty also transpires from Italian intelligence, that “we are in a delicate phase that requires the utmost discretion.” By the institutions are aware that “the situation is distressing” and that “the girls they send a cry of distress,” says the chairman of the House Laura Boldrini, hoping that “be able to bring them home.”
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