Tag: Aleppo

Aleppo Christian areas shelled, scores casualties

April 28, 2016 Syria Aleppo, Armenians, Children, Civil War, Kurds, Syria

Despite a fragile truce helped by both US and Russian efforts, at least 19 people have been killed and scores injured this week in continued shelling in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. Coinciding with the 101st anniversary of the Turkish genocide of Armenians and other Christians, areas of notable . . . Read More

Demonstration remembers kidnapped Aleppo Bishops

April 20, 2016 Syria Aleppo, Boulos Yazigi, Kidnapping, Syria, Yohanna Ibrahim

The kidnapped Aleppo Bishops, Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yazigi, were last seen three years ago this week. A multi-faith demonstration to remember them was held in Beirut, Lebanon 19 April, . There has been no news of the two men since their abduction on 22 April 2013, near the Turkish . . . Read More

Global Church meets to seek unity in face of persecution

November 6, 2015 Global News -- No Particular Country Albania, Aleppo, Algeria, Catholics, Churches, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, India, Iraq, Islamic State, Kenya, Kidnapping, Lebanon, Myanmar, Nigeria, Nineveh Plains, Orthodox, Pakistan, Pentecostals, Protestants, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Yohanna Ibrahim

Twenty-five years ago, on 4 Nov. 1990, a priest risked his life to hold a mass in a cemetery in Albania. In 1967 his president, Enver Hoxha, had declared that he had “abolished” the Christian faith, and that his country was henceforth the world’s first atheist state. On 4 Nov. . . . Read More

More Christians ‘abducted’ in Syria

August 7, 2015 Syria Aleppo, Homs, Kidnapping, Qaryatain, Refugees, Sunni, Syria

Islamic State has taken over a Syrian town southeast of Homs, its first major success since capturing Palmyra, a World Heritage site, in May 2015, about 100km to the northeast. At least 230 people are reported to have been abducted from Al-Quaryatayn, a town of 40,000 mainly Sunni Muslims and . . . Read More

Belgium rescues Aleppo Christians from Syria

July 8, 2015 Syria Aleppo, Chaldeans, Human rights, Lebanon, Middle East, Refugees, Syria, Yazidis

Some 240 people, mainly Christians, have been brought out of Syria’s second city of Aleppo and taken to Belgium, the government in Brussels says. All the families had fled their homes and were at risk of repeated human rights abuse, a spokesman told the BBC. Civil society groups helped take . . . Read More

Islamist forces battle for Hassaka and Aleppo

June 5, 2015 Syria Aleppo, Hasakah, Iraq, Islamic State, Kidnapping, Syria

Islamic State jihadists have begun closing in on two cities in northern Syria where there are still significant Christian communities. “IS is attacking Hassaka, and the situation is not that secure,” Father Emanuel Youkhana from the Christian Aid Program in Northern Iraq (CAPNI) told the Catholic Aleteia network on June . . . Read More

Bishop refutes alleged ‘revenge’ beheading

June 1, 2015 Syria Aleppo, Assyrians, Hasakah, Islamic State, Khabur, Kurds, Syria

The Catholic Bishop of Aleppo has rejected reports of the alleged “revenge” beheading of an Islamic State jihadist by an Assyrian Christian soldier in northeast Syria as “unreliable and unverifiable” rumors. According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), an unnamed fighter captured a non-Syrian jihadist last week . . . Read More

Historic church destroyed in Syria

April 30, 2015 Syria Aleppo, Armenians, Churches, Islamic State, Syria

An historic Armenian church has been destroyed in Aleppo, Syria. The Armenian Church of Forty Martyrs dates back to the 15th Century. The Armenian Weekly says it is unclear whether the church was destroyed by shelling or explosives. “The church was at the centre of Armenian community life in Aleppo, . . . Read More

Four years since teenage graffiti sparks Syrian civil war

March 12, 2015 Syria Aleppo, Arab Spring, Bashar al-Assad, Civil War, Daraa, Islamic State, Khabur, Syria

Four years ago this week a group of young teenagers with a can full of paint sprayed messages on a wall in the Syrian city of Daraa. They couldn’t have known it but, over the next nine days, their graffiti would escalate into the Syrian civil war, which reaches its . . . Read More

Dispatch from Aleppo

December 3, 2014 Syria Aleppo, Bashar al-Assad, Civil War

Free Syrian Army fight government forces, north of Aleppo 21 Aug 2012Photo: CC/ Christiaan Triebert From today World Watch Monitor will publish an occasional diary from a Christian pastor living in Aleppo, the Syrian city that has become a key battleground between rebels and President Assad’s government forces. After . . . Read More

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