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Elders from Arab
tribes had mediated with the jihadists for their release, the
Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The Assyrian Human Rights Network said the captives had been
returned to the town of Tel Tamer and that they were in good
health. It posted a picture showing several people including one
woman, who was weeping.
The hardline Sunni Muslim militants have now released 88 from
the original group, it said in a statement on its Facebook page,
and negotiations were continuing to secure the freedom of the
remaining 124.
They were captured during battles with the Syrian Kurdish YPG
militia when Islamic State fighters overran more than a dozen
villages inhabited by the ancient Christian minority near the
Syrian city of Hasaka, close to the Iraqi border.
Islamic State fighters killed three of the Assyrians last month,
according to the two monitoring groups.
(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Louise Ireland)
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