The death toll from the devastating magnitude 7.8 earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria on 6 February is continuing to grow, with at least 40,000 dead and tens of thousands injured.
The Catholic anti-persecution charity Aid to the Church In Need (ACN) is sending more than half a million Euros in aid to Christian initatives in Syria as the death toll continues to rise.
The head of ACN’s Lebanon and Syria section, Xavier Bisits, said in a statement that his organisation has directed funds to projects providing blankets and food, medicine, personal hygiene materials and even rent money for different groups affected by the disaster. Catholic groups launched several urgent appeals, with Cafod pledging an initial £100,000 to the relief effort.
The UK aid appeal has raised more than £50m.
In Turkey, Bishop Paolo Bizzeti, Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia, said the huge numbers of buildings crumbling in the south-east part of the country and the frantic attempts to rescue survivors would force society “to rethink our lives together, our policies, orienting them towards peace”.
This should be “an opportunity for us all to recognise that it is better to tear down walls and fences, and political divisions that basically do not do well for the population”, he said.
Charity networks linked to the Catholic Church, including Caritas, are all helping the affected communities and there is close collaboration with state bodies. The bishop added: “The affected area is very vast, and it has not been possible to intervene promptly on all fronts.”
Bishop Bizzeti reported that Iskenderun Cathedral has collapsed and churches of the Syrian Orthodox and Orthodox communities in that city have also been destroyed.
Antakya, the ancient Antioch and the heart of Turkish Christianity, is also largely destroyed, particularly the historic heart of the city.
It had also been home to one of southern Turkey's oldest Jewish communities, centred on a synagogue that was damaged in the quake. The president of the Turkish Jewish community wrote on Twitter: “The end of a 2,500-year-old love story.”
From Syria, Bishop Antoine Audo SJ, Chaldean Bishop of Aleppo, said that after 12 years of war “this is a new tremendous bomb, lethal and unknown, which falls on us”.
The earthquake was the most violent in eight centuries. He reported that Aleppo is “a city of two and a half million inhabitants without electricity, water and heating and it is very cold, winter is harsh.” Many people are living on the streets or in cars, afraid of further tremors.
He continued: “Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop Georges Masri of Aleppo has been pulled alive from the rubble, but his vicar is still under the destroyed building, and they still have not found him.”
The patriarchs and heads of churches in Syria have issued a statement calling for the lifting of economic embargoes and sanctions imposed by Western countries and organisations in 2011 against the government in Damascus.
They would now like to see the launch of humanitarian initiatives to help a Syrian population overwhelmed by disasters. They pointed out that the earthquake destroyed places of worship, health facilities, social assistance centres, fuelling a further increase in the number of homeless and internally-displaced persons at the very time of a harsh winter.
They called for governments, international institutions and humanitarian organisations to intervene to help the Syrian people, regardless of any political considerations or calculations.
The Middle East Council of Churches, an ecumenical liaison body of the Churches and ecclesial communities in the Middle East and North Africa, also called for "the immediate lifting of the sanctions against Syria and access to all resources, so that sanctions do not turn into a crime against humanity”.
The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols has written to Fr Andrawis Toma, chaplain to the Chaldean Catholic community in London, offering prayers and “sincere condolences” to members of Chaldean Catholic Church, which has substantial numbers in the two countries.
“I assure you all, too, of the prayers and condolences of the Catholic Community in England and Wales,” he said.
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