Christian humanitarian hostages released in Chechnya

CHRISTIAN HUMANITARIAN HOSTAGES RELEASED IN CHECHNYA

Gabor Dunaisky and Istvan Olah, Hungarian workers from the Hungarian Interchurch Aid charity, who had been kept in captivity in Chechnya for nine months, arrived safely in Budapest on July 25. The Christian humanitarian workers were captured by anonymous people on October 23, 1997, in Grozny where they were on humanitarian mission, working in cooperation with the Russian Orthodox Church under the program “Action of Churches Together – North Caucasus”.

Throughout their captivity in Chechnya the Russian Orthodox Church together with Russian and Hungarian state authorities as well as religious and public circles exerted every effort to get them released. In his letters of July 27 to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia and Head of the Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, director of Hungarian Interchurch Aid Laszlo Lehel thanked them for their continuous support and solidarity in this tragedy.

Among those who are still held captive in Chechnya is Dmitry Petrov, a Russsian citizen from the International Orthodox Charity Association. Efforts for his release continue.