Family of Jesuit kidnapped in Syria appeal for news

(ANSA) - Beirut, July 28 - The family of kidnapped Italian Jesuit priest Paolo Dall'Oglio on Monday called on his abductors to reveal his fate, one year after he went missing in Syria. "We want to hug him again, but we are also ready to mourn him," his relatives said in the appeal, which they sent to ANSA.
    A long-time promoter of interfaith dialogue in Syria, where he had lived for 30 years, Dall'Oglio was expelled by Damascus authorities in 2012.
    He returned a year later to help mediate a hostage release and a truce between warring factions in northern Syria, according to activists who helped him cross the Turkish border at the time.
    Dall'Oglio was last heard from in a July 27, 2013, email to his family from the northeastern Syrian city of Raqqa. He was kidnapped sometime between then and July 29, on his way to an undisclosed location along the Euphrates river.
    Since then, conflicting and unconfirmed reports from disparate sources have claimed he has been killed or alternately, that he is being held by jihadists and is in good health.
    In the latest such report, well-informed sources recently told ANSA that Dall'Oglio is allegedly being detained in the province of Raqqa.