ISIS releases 42 remaining Assyrian hostages

The Islamic State group (ISIS) has freed the last of more than 200 Assyrians it kidnapped in the northeast of Syria a year ago.

About 42 people were released on Monday morning, activists said, after mediation by the Assyrian Church.

An Assyrian group said that ISIS had demanded a ransom of $18 million.

Children, women and the elderly were among those taken hostage in an ISIS raid on 12 villages along the Khabur River near Tal Tamr last February.

That attack caused thousands more Assyrians to flee their homes. All of those hostages have been released gradually and in batches over the past 12 months.

'Paying the price of blood'

The Assyrian Human Rights Network in Sweden and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in Britain said 42 captives, most of them women and children, were released on Monday. The Assyrian Federation of Sweden put the number of those released at 43.

Yona Talia of the Assyrian Democratic Organization told The Associated Press that ISIS had demanded $18 million in ransom, but that figure was lowered during negotiations.

At the same time, an unnamed Syrian Christian figure told the news agency: “We paid large sums of money, including several million dollars, but not $18 million. We paid less than half of that.”

He added that the fate of the five Assyrians who disappeared last year is still unknown.

ISIS has repeatedly targeted religious minorities, telling Christians living in areas under its control to either convert to Islam or pay a tribute or face the death penalty.

It is estimated that up to 40,000 Assyrians live in Syria. The total number of Christians in Syria was estimated at 1.2 million before the start of the country's civil war.

Assyrians, who are among the world's oldest Christians, have been under increasing pressure since ISIS occupied parts of Syria.