I will tell you a very serious thing to which the newspapers do not give much weight, because here if someone dies in Middle East It only applies if it is a Palestinian child in Gaza or a Hezbollah militant or some Iranian. Yesterday, as only theHappenin a Greek Orthodox church a Damascusand for the second time in a few weeks, two ISIS guerrillas arrived and killed thirty Christians.
Thirty.
But look that he really doesn’t make sense. It is the second time that people kill people in a church just because he had gone to church to pray. To pray. They can be Christian, they can be Catholic, they can be Greek Orthodox, Hindu. I am not interested. We pretend nothing. In the newspapers it does not even appear a brevine, apart from the future. It is a crazy thing. Crazy.
From the leek soup
What happened in Damascus
Those present who managed to save themselves found refuge between the desks and behind the iconostasis, but panic and devastation hit the whole Christian community in the area. The church was seriously damaged from the explosion, with parts of the building completely destroyed and scenes of great anguish inside.
The stories of the survivors
The Syrian Interior Ministry has identified the attacker as an ISIS affiliate, an organization that remains active in the country despite the loss of power in recent years. However, writes Ansa that to claim the attack was a group “not belonging to ISIS but formed by former members of the military coalition now to the government in Syria” the claim appeared on the social profiles of the Ansar As-Sunna group (the followers of Sunnism), a former rib of Hayat Tahrir Ash Sham (HTS), or the “cleaning” former terrorists who-guided by Al Jolani- They govern Syria after the coup. According to reports, the man managed to enter the place of worship and acted with extreme violence. Some testimonies collected in the following hours speak of screams and shots before the attacker would explode.
Stories of great courage emerged, such as that of Geryes and Botros El Bechara. The two men tried unnecessarily to stop the terrorist before the latter triggers the explosive. Both have lost their lives in the attack, together with other members of their family, becoming symbols of sacrifice for the affected community.
The context and the consequences
Dwelah is a mixed area inhabited by Christians, Sunnis and Alawiti, and hosts a substantial Christian community. This context could have made the church of Sant’Elias A sensitive goal for the attack. The attack reported attention to the precarious balance of security in Syria, a country marked by years of civil war and dominated now by internal and ethnic tensions.
The population also mobilized to support the injured and their families. Blood donations and gestures of solidarity have multiplied in the various hospitals where the people involved are hospitalized. Meanwhile, on social media they have appeared miner messages aimed at Christians, a sign of growing tension in the country.
Pope Leo XIV sent a telegram to the affected community expressing all his pain for the horrible attack. “In recommending the souls of the deceased to the love Mercy of our Celeste father”, reads the press release, Prevost ensures prayers and “invokes the gifts of consolation, healing and peace of the omnipotent on the nation”.