Two countries in the Middle East, Syria and Lebanon, are exhausted and lack food, medicine and electricity. Church agencies do all they can to help.
(Vatican News Network)In Syria, besides the war, another worry for the local church is the economic crisis. This crisis is dragging people, already exhausted by years of bombing and death, into darker poverty.
Joseph Tobji, the Maronite Archbishop of Aleppo in Syria, lamented that “people are dying of hunger, families are unable to live a decent life and young people flee to other countries in the hope of finding a better future”. According to the archbishop, all this can be attributed to the imposition of international sanctions. “For years we have spoken out about this, but no one listens to us: sanctions kill all people. This is worse than war”.
In this increasingly tragic situation, the Church has mobilized, in many cases replacing the State, to meet the needs of the people. “Church institutions pay for food, schools, medicines and sometimes rent. We don’t expect to do everything, but only what we can do,” said Archbishop Dobeji.
In Lebanon, which borders Syria, the Church is also concerned about the situation there. Father Abdo Raad, who had just completed a mission in the southeast of the capital Beirut, said painfully, “When I landed at the airport, I was greeted by darkness. If the capital is dark, then the situation in other cities and refugee camps can be imagined. We know that because the price of energy has increased by 40 times compared with two years ago, the cost has increased significantly, so there is a lack of electricity here.”
The Lebanese priest uses dark metaphors to describe the situation of the people: “It is the darkness of the soul, it is the darkness of the intellect. There is a lack of everything here, as well as bread and medicine.” Fr Ladd denounces that this is due to “political fail, in which case politics is corrupt.” Furthermore, Fr Ladd admits that in just a few years “the suicide rate has increased, with young people risking their lives trying to escape by sea”. He explained that the church tries to help people, but “opportunities to support them are really few and far between, because the financial resources are few and far between. The only thing the church can do, and is doing, is to ease the pain a little bit.”
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