Silvia Romano was working as a volunteer in an orphanage in a village in southeast Kenya when she was seized by gunmen in November 2018. She was smuggled across the border into Somalia, where she was believed to have been detained by the Islamist group al Shabaab. Italian media reported that Rome paid a ransom of some 1.5 million euros ($1.6 million) to secure Romano’s release. “Some will be used to buy weapons, which we need more and more of to fight jihad (holy war). The spokesman said Romano had converted voluntarily “because she clearly saw with her own eyes a better world than she knew before”.

Source: Standard Digital May 12, 2020 15:56 UTC