Ukrainian woman kidnapped in Syria, says Foreign Ministry
A Ukrainian woman has been kidnapped by guerrillas in Syria, the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine, Oleksandr Dykusarov, has told Interfax-Ukraine.
The woman came to Syria as an interpreter for a Russian camera crew, he said.
"The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine and the Embassy of Ukraine in Syria have received and are checking the reported kidnapping of a Ukrainian citizen in Syria. According to the information we've received from the migration service of Syria, the woman was born in 1972 and is a citizen of Ukraine. She crossed the Syrian border on September 22 this year at Damascus International Airport by invitation of a public organization," he said.
"According to the information received by us from a Russian camera crew, for which the Ukrainian citizen used to work as an interpreter in recent times, she contacted them on October 12-13. In a phone conversation on October 9 she confirmed that she had been kidnapped and detained by force by guerrillas of a Syrian opposition military detachment of the Free Syrian Army," Dykusarov said.
He added that the woman was being kept in satisfactory conditions and neither she nor her relatives have contacted the Embassy of Ukraine in Syria or the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine.
"We would like to stress that the Foreign Ministry has called on Ukrainian citizens numerous times to refrain from traveling to Syria due to the unsafe situation in the country," Dykusarov said.