News of apparent beheading hits hard in hometown

VRPOLJE, Croatia – In Tomislav Salopek’s hometown Vrpolje in Croatia, residents refuse to believe Wednesday’s reports that the 30-year-old surveyor appears to have become the first Croat to be beheaded by the Islamic State group.

“No, no, no,” Goran Blazanovic kept repeating as he sat in the local cafe filled with pale and quiet guests who were switching from one news portal to another on their smartphone screens, looking for signs that would give them hope that the reports were mistaken.

“Nothing is proven,” he said. “We hope that he will come back home to his wife and children.”

Salopek, who was working with France’s CGG Ardiseis, was abducted on July 22 in Egypt and appeared last week on an Islamic State group video as a hostage demanding Egyptian authorities to free “Muslim women,” a term referring to female Islamist prisoners detained in a sweeping government crackdown following the 2013 military ouster of the country’s Islamist president.

Then on Wednesday, IS sympathizers circulated an image on social media that appeared to show Salopek’s beheaded body lying on desert sand with a black IS flag and a knife planted next to it. The picture or the information about his execution could not be officially verified.

Croatians had hoped diplomacy and reason would prevail and that their citizen would return home to his family, far away from the conflict he had nothing to do with.

Addressing the nation, Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic urged people not to expose their children to the gruesome image and said “we cannot 100 percent confirm it is true but what we see looks horrific.”

Croatia’s President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic also spoke of “moments of deep uncertainty,” and her country’s determination to continue to search for Salopek as long as there is a “glimmer of hope.”

“The shock over what I saw on the Internet is too strong. Beheaded. We as believers will rise above revenge and hatred,” said local priest Ivica Krizanovic, who has been organizing prayers for Salopek.

So like before, residents sat in church benches with heads bowed, eyes closed and rosaries wrapped around their palms, repeating “Mother of God, we are begging you.”

Except this evening, most of them cried.

Associated Press