Fiji’s UN peacekeepers in Golan said to be released soon

SUVA, Fiji — A group of 45 UN peacekeepers from Fiji taken hostage in the Golan Heights two weeks ago by the Syrian al-Nusra Front rebels will be released soon, the Fiji government said Wednesday.

“Fijian troops will soon be released. More details to follow,” the Ministry of Information said in a one-line statement on its official Facebook page.

Details of when the men will be released and their well-being were not immediately available.

The UN has been trying to broker their release since they were surrounded and taken hostage in late August after Syrian rebels captured a border crossing near the abandoned town of Quneitra. Fighters from the Nusra Front, abducted the Fijian peacekeepers and surrounded two Filipino contingents, who later escaped to Israel.

The UN Security Council council has demanded that all groups abandon areas controlled by the UN peacekeepers and the Quneitra crossing, and return all vehicles, weapons and equipment belonging to the peacekeepers.

Fiji commander Brig. Gen. Mosese Tikoitoga said last week that the Nusra Front has made three demands for the release of the peacekeepers: It wants to be taken off the UN terrorist list; it demands that humanitarian aid be delivered to parts of the Syrian capital of Damascus; and it calls for compensation for three of its fighters who, it claims, were killed in a shootout with UN officers.

The Nusra Front accused the UN of doing nothing to help the Syrian people since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011. It said the Fijians were seized in retaliation for the UN’s ignoring “the daily shedding of the Muslims’ blood in Syria” and even colluding with Assad’s army “to facilitate its movement to strike the vulnerable Muslims” through a buffer zone in the Golan Heights.

UNDOF was established in May 1974 following intensified firing on the Israel-Syria border after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967, and Syria has campaigned for decades for return of the land. For nearly four decades, the UN monitors helped enforce a stable truce between Israel and Syria, but the Golan Heights has increasingly become a battlefield in the more than three-year-old Syrian conflict.

The mission currently has troops from six countries: Fiji, India, Ireland, Nepal, Netherlands and the Philippines.

In June, the Security Council extended the mission’s mandate for another six months, until 31 December 2014, the UN said.

A number of countries have withdrawn their peacekeepers due to the escalating violence.