Syria - The difficult hours that Damascus is experiencing

23 February 2018

(ANS - Damascus) - Damascus, the capital of Syria, is experiencing very difficult days. "It has always been like this in these seven years of war, but these days we suffer even more because many missiles and mortar shells are being fired from the Ghouta, an area on the outskirts of Damascus, full of jihadists and many other fundamentalist groups." This is how Fr Mounir Hanachi, a Salesian from Aleppo, currently the director of the Salesian center in Damascus, describes the difficult hours that the city is experiencing.

In a few days, in March, Syria will enter its eighth year of war and now the bombing of the Ghouta area has intensified this last week because the government is preparing a final assault to retake the neighborhood.

Many missiles are raining on the capital from Ghouta. Fr Hanachi continues: "They are causing the deaths of many civilians and children. This is why so many schools have decided to close their doors and a semi-curfew applied to the capital. There is so much fear among the people and the children, and even we at the oratory have had to suspend all activities because the children who come with the oratory bus or on foot in the street could be hit by the missiles. We encouraged them to stay home until the situation calmed down a bit, before we could resume activities."

"I hope that my voice reaches all of you, friends, in the midst of all this silence with which the West looks upon the tragedy the Syrian people are experiencing, and in the face of the manipulation of so many websites and media on the reality that we live in Syria. I remember you all, friends, in prayer, in this time of Lent: time of prayer and of return to God the Father. May the sun of the Resurrection touch the hearts of the powerful and return peace to this battered land," concludes Fr Hanachi.

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ANS - “Agenzia iNfo Salesiana” is a on-line almost daily publication, the communication agency of the Salesian Congregation enrolled in the Press Register of the Tibunal of Rome as n 153/2007.

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