BEIRUT — Islamic State released 19 Assyrian Christian captives in Syria on Sunday after processing them through a Shariah court, a monitoring group which tracks the conflict said.
More than 200 Assyrians remain in Islamic State hands, said the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, captives from an Islamic State advance last month that overran more than a dozen villages inhabited by the ancient Christian minority near Hasaka, a northeastern city mainly held by the Kurds.
Islamic State has not claimed any of the abductions. The Observatory tracks the conflict using a network of sources on all sides of the civil war, which spiraled as security forces used violence to suppress protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule in 2011.
It said 17 men and two women were released.
Islamic State has killed members of religious minorities and Sunnis who do not swear allegiance to its self-declared “caliphate.” The group last month released a video showing its members beheading 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya.