A Croatian citizen held captive by an ISIS affiliate in Egypt has reportedly been killed. The group in Egypt claimed Wednesday that they have beheaded and killed Croatian hostage Tomislav Salopek after posting an image online of a decapitated body.
Officials from numerous countries as well as the SITE Intelligence Group reported the beheading of Tomislav Salopek Wednesday.
According to NBC News, the ISIS affiliate in Egypt has started threats of killing Salopek since last week.
In a previous video, a man claiming to be the 30-year-old geoscientist Tomislav Salopek said militants will kill him unless Egypt frees Muslim women they have held prisoners.
If confirmed, the Salopek beheading claim by the Sinai Province group would represent the first time that they have killed a foreigner during their two years of attacks against the Egyptian government, according to The New York Times.
Salopek was reportedly kidnapped on July 22 while working for French firm CGG as a contractor.
Like all cases of ISIS beheadings, the alleged Tomislav Salopek beheading had no immediate or definitive proof that Salopek was indeed the man beheaded. According to CNN, they could not confirm the authenticity of the image.
According to a Croatian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, they had "no confirmation" regarding Tomislav Salopek, who has only been referred to by the initials T.S.
Croatian authorities said that for as long as there is "one little crumb of a chance that Tomislav is alive," according to Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic, who spoke from Adriatic city of Split.
Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic however conceded that they "fear that unfortunately what's happened to other countries' citizens has befallen this Croatian citizen."
He added that Salopek's beheading will not mean Croatia will start going after ISIS "because others need to handle that." He also said that the incident should not change how citizens approach the world because the people would only give in to exactly what ISIS wants.
"We have to proceed with normal life, because this is an attempt to shatter our way of living," said Milanovic.
