Crisis by Nicky Perfect

Author:Nicky Perfect [Perfect, Nicky]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2023-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

In 2014, an Italian hostage named Federico Motka was freed by ISIS following the payment of a multi-million dollar ransom. Motka smuggled out with him a letter from John Cantlie. The existence of this letter was concealed until April 2022.

For the six British and American prisoners, Cantlie had written to his family, the group is demanding a total of $100 million. The prisoners he was referring to, along with himself, were James Foley, Steven Sotloff, David Haines, Alan Henning and Peter Kassig. They were the last of twenty-four hostages taken by ISIS, nineteen men and five women.

The British and American Governments are the most hated and therefore they are demanding the most for us, John’s letter went on. The amount of ransom is extremely high, but it is the only way the rest of us here will ever be released. If the money is not found we will remain prisoners here until we die, either by natural causes or executions.

A total of €40 million had been paid by European governments for the others but the final six had felt completely abandoned, according to media reports years later. I read about this in a magazine after I’d retired, and thought of how John Cantlie must have believed these words and despaired. The sorrow this brought up was so raw that I burst into tears. I wished I could have told him that it simply wasn’t true. He had never been forgotten, not by any of us. But he was beyond any help that we could give.

We love our families, John’s letter concluded, and we pray you are holding up under this situation. A few weeks later, the Beatles began their beheadings.

There’s no evidence that John himself was murdered by ISIS. No video of his killing was ever released. But in July 2017, eight months after his final TV report from Mosul, the city suffered a devastating bombardment and was re-taken by Iraqi forces. No one knows if he was still being held there at the time. He has never been found. He’s the only one of those last six Syrian hostages whose fate is still unknown today.

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