{"id":82799,"date":"2015-01-16T07:35:27","date_gmt":"2015-01-16T07:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=82799"},"modified":"2015-01-16T07:35:27","modified_gmt":"2015-01-16T07:35:27","slug":"italian-aid-worker-hostages-syria-freed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=82799","title":{"rendered":"Italian aid worker hostages in Syria freed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"story_continues_1\" class=\"introduction\">Two Italian aid workers who were taken hostage in Syria more than five months ago have been released.<\/p>\n<p>Greta Ramelli, 20, and Vanessa Marzullo, 21, were greeted by Italy&#8217;s foreign minister as they arrived at Rome airport early on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>No details have been provided on the circumstances behind their release.<\/p>\n<p>The pair had been working on humanitarian projects when they were abducted in July 2014 in the northern province of Aleppo.<\/p>\n<p>The two young women flew in from Turkey and were welcomed by Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni.<\/p>\n<p>They have been taken to hospital for a check-up before meeting anti-terror prosecutors, who have opened an investigation into the abduction.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"cross-head\">&#8216;Intense work&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Earlier, Ms Marzullo&#8217;s father, Salvatore, said: &#8220;I&#8217;m feeling such enormous joy: this is the news I have been waiting for a long time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The two women were working for the aid group Horryaty when they were kidnapped last year.<\/p>\n<p>In a video showing the hostages and released two weeks ago, their captors said the women were being detained by the al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda&#8217;s branch in Syria.<\/p>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/80296000\/jpg\/_80296795_80296794.jpg\" alt=\"An image from a video dated 17 December 2014 showing Vanessa Marzullo and Greta Ramelli\" width=\"624\" height=\"351\" \/>The Italian women appeared in a hostage video released two weeks ago<\/div>\n<p>&#8220;We are in big danger and we could be killed,&#8221; said one of the women, speaking in English. &#8220;The government and its militaries are responsible [for] our lives.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Italian foreign ministry said the release was the result of &#8220;intense work by team Italy&#8221;, without providing details.<\/p>\n<p>The BBC&#8217;s Gillian Hazel in Rome says there are unconfirmed rumours that a ransom worth up to $15m (\u00a39.9m) had been paid for the pair&#8217;s release following negotiations facilitated by Qatar.<\/p>\n<p>Italy has paid ransoms for Italian captives in the past. Both the al-Nusra Front and its rival, Islamic State, have taken hostages during the conflict in Syria.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two Italian aid workers who were taken hostage in Syria more than five months ago have been released. Greta Ramelli, 20, and Vanessa Marzullo, 21, were greeted by Italy&#8217;s foreign minister as they arrived at Rome airport early on Friday. No details have been provided on the circumstances behind their release. The pair had been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-82799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}