Two female Italian aid workers have been kidnapped by an unknown Islamic terrorist group, the UK Daily Mail reports.
The two aids, Greta Ramelli and Vanessa Marzullo, were doing humanitarian work in Aleppo, Syria, despite pleas from their parents not to go into Syria.
“What could I do? Vanessa is an adult, a golden girl, brave and responsible,” Salvador Marzullo, Vanessa’s father, told the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera. “I tried to reason with her, I tried to convince her in every way I could not to do what she had in mind.”
The details of the kidnapping are unclear, but it is believed that the two females were kidnapped on August 1, taken to El Ismo and then transported to the head of the local Revolutionary Council’s home.
Vanessa Marzullo had developed in interest in activism, particularly to help out in Syria, at the University of Milan. She and Ramelli had been to Syria numerous times since 2012.
The Italian foreign deputy minister says they’re working “belly to the ground” to find the kidnapped girls.