adminTHE UN has confirmed 45 Fijian peacekeepers being held captive in Syria have been released. The Fijians were serving in the UN Disengagement Observer Force, which is monitoring a 1974 ceasefire between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights. “All the 45 peacekeepers are in good condition,” a UN spokesman said, adding they would undergo a medical check-up.
The blue helmets were captured on August 28 by al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra fighters who stormed a Golan Heights crossing and forced them to surrender their weapons. The Syrian rebels also besieged a second group of Philippine peacekeepers who refused to disarm and managed to escape.
Al-Nusra said in a video released late on Wednesday that it planned to free the Fijian peacekeepers, dropping demands for aid, a prisoner release and the removal of the group from a UN terror blacklist.
The video showing two men speaking in Arabic with the Fijian troops sitting in the background had earlier shown one of the Fijian soldiers speaking in English. He says the date is September 9 and it’s a “very happy day”.
“We’ve been informed that we will be released soon, and we are all very happy to be going home,” he says. It is unclear if the soldier is speaking freely or under duress. He says all the soldiers are alive, safe and well.
“We have not been harmed in any way,” he says, adding they have been treated well by the al-Nusra Front.
In the video, the two men speaking in Arabic describe their version of events leading up to the Fijians’ capture. They say one of them had given assurances the soldiers would not be harmed, and so they were honouring that. The men say they wanted to complete a prisoner exchange and to have humanitarian aid delivered to Syria, but denied reports they had asked for the Nusra Front to be removed from the UN terrorist list.
During the video, the men speaking Arabic also describe consulting Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, who was released by Jordanian authorities in June after serving a five-year sentence on terror charges.
The video surfaced a day after Fiji may have jumped the gun by announcing that the peacekeepers would soon be released. — AP.
Bongani Ndlovu