VATICAN CITY (CNS) - As a brief cease-fire agreement failed and Syrian government forces returned to bombing Aleppo and fighting rebels in the city streets, Pope Francis made a forceful appeal for assistance for the thousands of innocent civilians trapped in the besieged city.
[caption id="attachment_20477" align="alignright" width="250"] Medics inspect the damage outside a field hospital Sept. 27 after an airstrike in the rebel-held al-Shaar neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria. More than 200 airstrikes bombarded the city since Sept. 24, leaving more than100 civilians dead, with hundreds more injured, according to the head of the Syria Civil Defense group, a volunteer emergency medical service. (CNS photo/Abdalrhman Ismail, Reuters) See POPE-ALEPPO-APPEAL Sept. 28, 2016.[/caption]
"I appeal to the consciences of those responsible for the bombardments," Pope Francis said at the end of his weekly general audience Sept. 28. "They will have to account to God!"
Dozens of civilians were reportedly killed by the bombardments in late September and the U.N. World Food Program said it was "extremely concerned about the more than 250,000 people trapped in eastern Aleppo city who are cut off from food, water, medicine and other essential supplies."
Pope Francis told people gathered for his general audience that his thoughts and prayers were going "to the beloved and martyred Syria. I continue to receive dramatic news about the fate of Aleppo's population."
Expressing his "profound pain and deep concern for what is happening in this already martyred city," the pope told people that it is a place where death strikes "children, the elderly, the sick, young people, old people, everyone."
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