ICC Note: With Syria’s war continuing, Christians in Aleppo, the country’s largest city, continue to face danger. The conflict in the city has pounded the Christian quarter leaving many homes, schools, and other buildings in ruins. As Easter came, the fighting continued to cause widespread fear for the Christians who have endured more than four years of war.
04/14/2015 Syria (Asia News) The situation in Aleppo has “worsened”, and fighting is escalating in the city, Mgr Georges Abou Khazen, the apostolic vicar of Aleppo of the Latins, told AsiaNews. Civilians, Christians and Muslims, “are tired of war, tired of these terrible acts of violence;” however, “regional and international” powers and interests are fuelling the conflict by sending “heavier and more lethal weapons.”
Once Syria’s economic powerhouse, Aleppo is likely to be destroyed by the madness of a war that spares no homes, churches, schools or charitable organisations. The latest round of fighting left scores of Christians killed or wounded. Many others are still “trapped in the rubbles of the bombed out buildings,” the prelate said.
Two Christian men, Anwar and Misho Samaan, and their mother died in a rocket attack that hit their home last Friday, the local chapter of the Salesians Order reported.
Two days later, on Sunday, an air strike by government planes hit a school in a rebel-held neighbourhood, killing five children, three female teachers and a man. As a result of this, all 135 schools in rebel areas and local markets will be closed for the entire week.
Local witnesses report that people are “more afraid” than usual. Dozens of families have fled their homes for camps in Turkey; others have been displaced within the city of Aleppo itself.
As fighting has intensified, the Christian quarter has come under fire with many people killed and wounded. “Over night between Friday and Saturday, in the middle the Orthodox Easter, the Christian area was heavily shelled by heavy weapons, and rockets, which we never saw before, up to three metre long,” the vicar to Aleppo said.
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