Greatest humanitarian crisis in 70 years: Rodríguez

Conflict in Iraq, Syria and Gaza has led to the greatest humanitarian crisis since the Second World War, the head of the Catholic Church’s relief and development agencies said, writes Abigail Frymann.

Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, president of the Caritas Internationalis federation of Catholic charities, was speaking in Rome on Monday at a meeting of clerics and aid experts to discuss the crises in the Middle East.

“There are 13 million Syrians in desperate need, three million as refugees outside their country,” he said. “Over 1.3 million Iraqis have been forced from their homes. They are often living out in the open. In Gaza, an estimated 10,000 homes were destroyed this summer ... As part of the humanitarian community, we are confronted with the greatest crisis  since the Second World War.”

“We have come together to find the way [other than war]. And we have on our side tools more powerful than any weapons,” Cardinal Rodríguez said.

“Pope Francis said, ‘The Church faces hatred with love, defeats violence with forgiveness, responds to weapons with prayer’,” Cardinal Rodríguez recalled.