Another priest kidnapped in Syria


On July 4, 2015, Father Diya Aziz, an Iraqi Franciscan of the Custody of the Holy Land disappeared in Syria.

 diya ofmFather Diya, born in Iraq in 1974, made his religious vows in 2002. He has served in Egypt and has been serving in Yaacoubiya (near Idlib) in Syria, now controlled by Nusrat al-Jabhah, one faction in the opposition to the Syrian regime.

Father Diya is now one of five priests and two bishops who have been kidnapped in Syria and whose traces have disappeared. The most recent of these was Father Jack Mourad, a Syrian Catholic priest and monk. The number includes Jesuit Father Paolo dal’Oglio and the two bishops, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Boulos el-Yazji, and Syrian Orthodox Metropolitan Gregorios Yuhanna Ibrahim, both serving in Aleppo, all of whom disappeared about two years ago. Other priests and nuns have been kidnapped and released in the past.

We pray for Father Diya, the others who have been kidnapped, our Christian brothers and sisters and all those suffering in Syria.

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