BEIRUT - A group of nuns who went missing in Syria after Islamist fighters captured a Christian village this week have appeared in a video, saying they are in good health and denying that they had been kidnapped.
The nuns were taken after militants seized the ancient quarter of Maaloula, a Christian village north of Damascus, following heavy fighting with President Bashar Assad's forces on Monday.
The fighters then moved the nuns from the Greek Orthodox monastery of Mar Thecla to the nearby town of Yabrud, according to the Vatican's envoy to Syria.
In the video broadcast by Al Jazeera late on Friday, more than a dozen nuns wearing long black robes appeared sitting on couches around a room.
Asked by a man behind the camera if they had been kidnapped, one denied it and said they had only left the monastery to escape the shelling, and that they would be released after two days.