BOSTON (AP) – The twin sister of kidnapped journalist Jill Carroll pleaded for her release on Arab television Wednesday, saying her sister is a “wonderful person” who is an “innocent woman.”

Katie Carroll read a statement on Al Abrabiya, noting that there had been no word from her sister’s captors in Iraq in almost two months.

“I’ve been living a nightmare, worrying if she is hurt or ill,” Katie Carroll said, according to a transcript released by the Christian Science Monitor. “There is no one I hold closer to my heart than my sister and I am deeply worried wondering how she is being treated.”

Carroll, a freelance writer for the Boston-based Monitor, was kidnapped in Baghdad on Jan. 7 by gunman who killed her translator.

“No family should have to endure having their loved one taken away from them in this way,” Katie Carroll said Wednesday.

The Monitor also published photographs of the Carroll sisters Wednesday, including one taken in July 1982 when the twins were five years old and wearing their jet-black hair in pigtails.

Carroll grew up in Ann Arbor, Mich., and graduated from the University of Massachusetts.

Carroll’s captors were demanding the release of all women detainees in Iraq and had set a deadline for Feb. 26. Nothing has been heard from her or her captors since that date passed.

Katie Carroll also thanked the Iraqi people for their support during the ordeal. She quoted Siham Faraj, an Iraqi mother who spoke of Carroll after her own daughter was released from detention.

“Jill is a very good person,” Katie Carroll said, quoting Faraj. “Don’t worry, she’s coming back home.

“God never forgets good people.”