Cairo: An eight-year-old Syrian child, who was kidnapped more than three months ago, has been freed and returned to his family in the war-country in a case that has grabbed Arab attention, Syrian media reported.
Fawaz Qetaifan was kidnapped last November while he was on his way to school in the Syrian province of Darra.
His ordeal drew attention earlier this month as it coincided with the fall of a five-year-old boy into a well in Morocco where he eventually died after five days.
Fawaz recently appeared in a video begging his kidnappers to stop beating him.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said Fawaz was released on Saturday after his kidnappers got 500 million Syrian liras (140,000 dollars) in a ransom. The money was collected by members of Al Qetaifan tribe in and outside Syria.
The kidnappers left the child in a pharmacy in the city of Nawa in Daraa countryside, the observatory added.
