State media announced on Thursday that 19 hostages had been freed following a military operation against the militants in the southern province of Sweida.
But the head of local channel Sweida 24 said only 17 returned to their homes in the province early yesterday, indicating that three other hostages had died.
“Seventeen hostages returned,” Nour Radwan said.
Two children were killed as they tried to escape the truck where they were being held by IS, during clashes with the army, Sweida 24 reported a freed female hostage as saying.
They were aged seven and 13, Radwan said.
The community had also been hoping that another woman would come home, Radwan said, after IS claimed they killed her in October but did not send proof. She did not arrive home, however. “It seems that IS killed the woman at the beginning of October,” Radwan said.
IS militants abducted about 30 people — mostly women and children — from Sweida in late July during the deadliest attack on Syria’s Druze community of the seven-year civil war.
