Syria: Melkite Patriarch appeals for end to terror

(May 11, 2012) As two deadly bombs shook the Syrian capital Damascus, on Thursday, the head of the Melkite Church in the country appealed for a end to the violence and urged the world to do more to intervene in the Middle East. Patriarch Gregorios III Laham of the Melkite Greeks of Antioch and All the East was narrating how a powerful explosion had shattered the windows of the chapel of the Bab Sharqi cathedral some 3 kilometres away. Thursday’s twin suicide car bombs outside a military intelligence building in the capital that killed 55 people, were the deadliest attack against a regime target since the Syrian uprising began 14 months ago. The leader of the Catholic bishops of Syria vehemently condemned the attacks as “an act of unprecedented barbarity in Syria, which has shown the true face of the forces that surge behind this absurd propaganda war.” The patriarch also raised concern that the world is “not listening to the cries of anguish of the Syrian people.” “Even in this corner, so far untouched in the Holy Land, now runs the blood of innocent people. The Holy Land has been waiting for peace for 63 years, but so far there is only silence, indifference and empty words from the world,” Patriarch Laham lamented. The time has come “to end the parodies of a double-faced policy, in which unkept promises, and whose interests are unmentionable burn like salt on the open wounds of an entire region of the world”, Patriarch Laham said “The world can not allow hatred and war to swallow the Middle East into a bottomless abyss. It’s time to say enough,” he added.