A Syrian refugee. / thomas koch via Shutterstock.
Rome Newsroom, Mar 17, 2022 / 14:00 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis has said that the Catholic Church’s message to Syrians as their country enters its 12th year of war is “you are not forgotten.”The pope.
The apostolic nuncio said hope is gone and Syria has fallen into obscurity as the war there claimed 610,000 people, injured more than 2.1 million and caused an estimated 13 million to flee or become displaced within the country.
The Syrian flag. / By ART production via Shutterstock.Rome Newsroom, Mar 15, 2022 / 07:51 am (CNA).On the 11th anniversary of the start of the civil war in Syria, the papal nuncio lamented the country s loss of hope for the future."The Syrian catastrophe is still the most serious man-made humanitarian disaster since the end of the Second World War," Cardinal Mario Zenari said in an interview with Vatican News on March 15.Since the war started on March 15, 2011, there have been an estimated half a million casualties. The conflict has also created 6.6 million refugees, and 6.7 million internally displaced persons, according to the U.N. refugee agency."It is a sad anniversary, first of all, because the war is not over yet and also because for a couple of years now Syria seems to have disappeared from the media radar," Zenari said. "First the Lebanese crisis, then COVID-19, and now the war in Ukraine have taken its place."Syria, he said, has "fallen into