Islamic State in Sirte releases three foreigners a year and a half later

Three foreigners including two Indian men Balaram Kishan and T Gopalakrishna and another unidentified man who were held captive in an Islamic State prison in Sirte were recently released and arrived in Libya’s city of Misrata on Thursday.

The frail looking three men, two of them professors at seperate Libyan universities were captured by IS almost one and a half ago while travelling to the Libyan capital Tripoli.

The Indian embassy who negotiated for their release for about two months says a lot of developments, which they kept under wraps outplayed themselves.

Kishan spoke of their ordeal.

“And during this time we were not in one prison, they shipped us from one prison to another prison. All together, we were kept in eight prisons, and in the eight prisons the conditions were not good, we had to put up with bad conditions in those prisons.”

According to reports , the abduction of the two Indians came a year after 39 Indians were kidnapped from the Iraqi city of Mosul.

Forces aligned to Libya’s UN backed unity government supported by US air strikes have made significant advance against IS in Sirte, which the militant group turned into a regional stronghold in 2015.

Reuters