Yohanna Ibrahim, the Syriac Orthodox archbishop of Aleppo, and Paul Yazigi, the Greek Orthodox archbishop of Aleppo, have both been kidnapped by armed rebels in the northern province of Aleppo, according to Syria's state news agency SANA.
The rebel forces dispute the claim of the Assad regime that they are the guilty party, and say that it is in fact the doing of the government.
The New York Times writes that, until now, high-ranking members of Syria's Christian minority have remained untargeted, even as the country's highest-ranking Sunni imam was killed in a mosque bombing last month.
Archbishop Yazgi was not known to be politically active, but archbishop Ibrahim had previously been supportive of Assad, before becoming a critic of the embattled regime. In a recent BBC interview he chided Assad for poor crisis management.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Political News
May 01, 2026 15:54 ET Central banks dominated the economics news flow this week with almost all major ones announcing their latest policy decisions and many boosted expectations for a rate hike in June. In other news, several countries released the preliminary data for first quarter economic growth. In the U.S., comments by Fed Chair Jerome Powell were also in focus as his term ends this month.