Pope Francis expresses concern over violence and deaths in Syria

Pope Francis expressed sorrow on Sunday at the deterioration of the situation in Syria, where more than 1,000 people have been killed in the country's western region in the last few days.

The Holy See’s Press Office released a text for the Angelus of the first Sunday of Lent, sent by His Holiness from the Gemelli Polyclinic, where he was hospitalized on February 14, in which he addresses, among other things, the complex situation in that Arab country.

“I have learned with concern about the resumption of violence in some areas of Syria,” which “I hope that they cease definitively, with full respect for all ethnic and religious components of society, especially civilians.”

The three days of violence unleashed in that country’s western region has already claimed the lives of 1,018 civilians, including 745 civilians who were killed in massacres, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights informed.

These crimes were mainly perpetrated in the Latakia and Tartous coastal provinces, inhabited by the Alawite Muslim community, a minority consisting of about 10 percent of the Syrian population, the institution denounced and affirmed that the death toll could be higher than estimated.

The Pope’s message was released by the Vatican at the end of the Holy Mass on the Jubilee of the World of Volunteering, presided, on behalf of the Pope, by Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.