Pope Leo XIV said on Tuesday he was deeply saddened by a suicide attack on a Greek Orthodox church in Syria at the weekend.
A little-known Sunni Muslim extremist group has claimed responsibility for the attack on Sunday, which killed 25 and wounded more than 60 others.
The authorities had initially blamed the Islamic State group for the shooting and suicide bombing at the Saint Elias church in the Syrian capital.
“His Holiness Pope Leo XIV was deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life and destruction caused by the attack on the Greek Orthodox church of Mar Elias in Damascus,” said Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin.
“He expresses heartfelt solidarity with all those affected by this tragedy,” said the Italian cardinal, who is the second-highest official in the Catholic Church after the pope.
The attack was the first suicide bombing in a church in Syria since the country’s civil war erupted in 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitor based in London.
It followed sectarian violence in recent months, including massacres of members of the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs and clashes with Druze fighters, with security one of the new authorities’ greatest challenges.
Syria’s Christian minority is estimated to have shrunk from one million in 2011 to around 300,000 today.
AFP
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