Damascus bombing kills 9 in Christian districts

CNA Staff, Aug 4, 2020 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- A Maronite priest from Lebanon has expressed concern that the country may face food shortages in the wake of Tuesday’s explosion at Beirut’s port.

The explosion “happened at the biggest docks in Lebanon and they also have big reservoirs of wheat, the central reservoirs are there, and these have gone, have gone to ashes. That’s another tragedy in the making because they will have shortages,” Fr. Maxim Baz, who is serving in Rome, told CNA Aug. 4.

The blast killed at least 50, and injured thousands more. Officials have not yet determined the cause of the explosions, but investigators believe they may have started with a fire in a warehouse that stored explosive materials. Lebanon’s security service warned against speculations of terrorism before investigators could assess the situation.

Fr. Baz said that “the most important thing is for people to pray for everybody who has been hurt in Lebanon.”

He said his country “has been undergoing for the past decades one tragedy after another, really suffering in silence,” citing a financial crisis, the coronavirus, and the civil war of 1975-90.

“It seems that this country is just trying to come out of the darkness and every time it does it receives another blow,” he lamented.

“A Catholic is always close to those who suffer. That’s the distinctive trait of a Catholic and that is a distinctive trait of the Church,” Fr. Baz noted. “Wherever there is suffering, or wherever there is extreme, extreme vulnerability, there the Church is because there God is, actually. So a Catholic can not not be there, at least with their hearts, with their prayers, with their moral support.”

The explosion ignited fires and destroyed buildings in the city’s port area, caused damage across the city, and has flooded hospitals with casualties.

The Custody of the Holy Land tweeted showing damage to its monastery in Beirut, adding that none of its friars were injured and urging prayer for Lebanon.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Footage from our monastery in <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Beirut?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Beirut</a>, <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Lebanon?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Lebanon</a> after the explosion occurred in that area. <br><br>No one of the <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Franciscans?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Franciscans</a> living there were injured. <br><br>Let us pray for Lebanon. <a href=”https://t.co/GpFZgM5mUA”>pic.twitter.com/GpFZgM5mUA</a></p>&mdash; Custodia Terrae Sanctae (@custodiaTS) <a href=”https://twitter.com/custodiaTS/status/1290716481014112264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>August 4, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

Raymond Nader, a Maronite in Lebanon, told CNA: “I just ask for prayers now from everyone around the world. We badly need prayers.”

Hannah Brockhaus contributed to this report.

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Al-Rusul School in Jounieh, Lebanon. / Credit: Noel Al Haber

ACI MENA, Oct 14, 2024 / 14:20 pm (CNA).
War and widespread displacement, compounded by an economic crisis, have pushed Lebanon’s education system to the verge of collapse. Approximat… […]

Qamishli, Syria, Jul 12, 2019 / 04:18 pm (CNA).- A car bomb exploded near a Syriac Orthodox church in Qamishli Thursday, injuring about 11 people. It is unclear who is responsible for the attack.

According to AFP, the July 11 bombing “slightly dented” the metal gate of the Church of the Virgin Mary located in the al-Wasta neighborhood of Qamishli, in Syria’s Al-Hasakah Governorate on the border with Turkey.

Sana, the Syrian state news agency, reported that the blast caused “material damage to parts of the church, shops and cars.”

Ignatius Aphrem II, Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, “condemned with the strongest terms this coward terrorist act, considering that the perpetrators of the explosion aim to create an atmosphere of worry and chaos among citizens and destabilize the situation in the region,” Sana reported.

Al-Wasta is held by the Syrian government; much of the rest of Qamishli is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed, Kurdish-dominated alliance.

Most media report that the attack has gone unclaimed, though The Defense Post reported that Islamic State took credit for the bombing.

Joan Garcia, a researcher with the Rojava Information Center (an organization in northeastern Syria assisting reporters and researchers), told The Defense Post that “this attack is the eleventh in eleven days in Hasakah province and the fourth in a month in Qamishlo – the de facto capital of North East Syria.”

North East Syria is a Kurdish name for Rojava, or Western Kurdistan, a de facto autonomous region of Syria under Kurdish control.

Garcia added that Qamishli “has for some years been secure from ISIS attacks.”

“As such, these attacks form part of a steady increase in ISIS-linked attacks in previously-secure, Kurdish-majority cities close to the border. This particular attack targeted worshippers leaving a church, part of the Christian minority which in Qamishlo exists peacefully alongside Arab and Kurdish communities,” Garcia said.

The Syrian civil war began in March 2011 with demonstrations against the nation’s president, Bashar al-Assad. The war has claimed the lives of more than 500,000 people, and forced 5.6 million to become refugees. Another 6.6 million Syrians are believed to have been internally displaced by the violence.

The civil war is being fought among the Syrian regime and a number of rebel groups. The rebels include moderates, such as the Free Syrian Army; Islamists such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the Islamic State; and Kurdish separatists.

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