Syria, 8 years after the kidnapping of Father Dall’Oglio, appeal to Draghi

It is a new “appeal to the Italian government” for Father Paolo Dall’Oglio that comes from his sister Francesca eight years passed since July 29, 2013 in Syria, in Raqqa, the traces of the Roman Jesuit were lost. “Eight years have passed and since then there has been no confirmed news, a need for truth that is becoming more and more stringent – says Francesca Dall’Oglio to Aki – Adnkronos International – My hope is that being Paolo an Italian citizen, a good man, a witness of faith, the current Draghi government and Elisabetta Belloni as director general of the Dis may constitute an element that makes us look forward with confidence “. His is also an appeal to the international community because – he says – “it is important that we address the problem of the thousands of disappeared, kidnapped and mass graves in Raqqa”. “Anyone who should know something, tell it,” echoes John from Uganda. Because “after so many years of celebrating this bad anniversary we have not yet had any proof that he is alive or that he is dead”, he tells Aki – Adnkronos International. “We have entrusted ourselves to the authorities, we know that there has been a commitment, I trust a lot in Prime Minister Mario Draghi”, but “we have always had contradictory information”, continues Giovanni Dall’Oglio, in Uganda with Doctors with Africa CUAMM . And he remembers how “according to many it was in Raqqa, in the mass graves” with thousands of bodies thrown there by Isis, “that one had to look for” Father Paolo, while “other roads led more towards the part of Bashar al-Assad than the Isis “also because the Jesuit had” fought for years for democracy “and” on Assad’s side he had enemies. ” his strengths, starting with Raqqa because – he says – the “kidnapping” of Father Paolo “has never been claimed as ISIS used to do in that period” and “among the various hypotheses, therefore, the one that can having been taken on behalf of the regime “. Francesca Dall’Oglio refers to “an investigation by Marina Pupella that will be published tomorrow in ‘Political Instruments’ from which it emerges that in the governorate of Raqqa between 2012 and 2014 it seems there was a secret room where Adib Nimr Salamah was located, general of the secret services of the Syrian Air Force “. Father Dall’Oglio’s sister then remembers once again another piece of news that” keeps alive “in her heart” the hope that Paul may be alive “, that” out in Baghuz , at the beginning of 2019, in which Paolo was among 40 hostages who had to be released during the siege “of the city, then the last bastion of ISIS. Then, he continues, “nothing more, until last March, when reports never confirmed it seems that Paul is a prisoner in the countryside between Idlib and Aleppo of the fundamentalist group Horas Al-Din”. And he does not forget when the United States offered a reward of five million dollars to find Father Paolo, “a concrete element – he says – that can give hope.” “Surely to know that Paul had gone to Raqqa to carry out a mission of peace, of mediation for the kidnapping of his friends, he helps us to deal with this kidnapping “, Francesca continues, recalling an interview with her brother” recorded by Orient Tv on the evening of July 28 eight years ago in which Paolo states that ‘the release of the kidnapped and of the prisoners it symbolizes the desire to find a common path ‘and’ if this is not the case we will truly enter the unknown ‘”. Giovanni Dall’Oglio, who has been in Africa for 16 years, says he is” proud “of the brother he has seen for the last time nine years ago, he remembers “the love for Islam”, the capacity for dialogue and the “goal”, that of “making sure that he could change that so absurd and violent turn” that the Syrian protest had taken exploded in 2011, resulted in a bloody repression and conflict. It speaks of a man who “had decided to make his life a mission in the name of God, for others”. “He is so present among us – he concludes – He will never die”.