'I'm dying, please help me': Kerala priest held captive in Yemen pleads for rescue [Video]
- Fr Tom Uzhunnalil was abducted in March 2016 from an old-age home in Aden
- "My health condition is deteriorating quickly and I require hospitalisation as early as possible"
- "Please, please do what you can to help to get me released"
Follow"My health condition is deteriorating quickly and I require hospitalisation as early as possible," a weak and tired Fr Tom can be seen saying in the video.
"My dear family people, do what you can to help me be released. Please, please do what you can to help to get me released. May God bless you for that," he added in the recording carried by Yemen news website Aden Time.
The date '15-4-2017' can be seen written on a cardboard which is pasted on the priest's body. However, the authenticity of the recording could not immediately be verified.
The priest, who hails from Kottayam, said his kidnappers had contacted the Indian government and a Catholic bishop in Abu Dhabi with their demands but the response was "not encouraging".
Fr Tom was abducted in March 2016 from an old-age home run by Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in the southern Yemeni city of Aden, when four gunmen posing as relatives of one of the residents at the home burst inside, killing 15 people, including four Indian nuns, two Yemeni female staff members, eight elderly residents and a guard.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack and hence the motive remains unclear.
The priest had appealed to Pope Francis and the Indian government to secure his release from his captors in an earlier video on December 2016.Â
(with agency inputs)
