After two years of Syrian violence, religious sisters continue aid

Damascus, Syria, Mar 15, 2013 / 17:02 pm

While the world marks the second anniversary of demonstrations that began what is now the Syrian civil war, the Sisters of Charity of Besançon continue to help the poor of the country's capital.

"Everybody is afraid. They don't know how long they have to live," Sister Marie-Joseph Chanaa told Aid to the Church in Need March 13.

When someone goes to work he doesn't know if he'll come home again," she said.

Sr. Chanaa and five other Sisters of Charity of Besançon work and pray in Damascus to care for their neighbors, who are caught in the midst of war. She said to Aid to the Church in Need that they pray daily for peace, and she encourages those she helps to maintain hope.

On March 15, 2011, demonstrations across Syria sprang up, protesting the rule of Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president and leader the country's Ba'ath Party. The next month the Syrian army began to deploy to put down the uprisings, firing on protesters.

Since then, the conflict has morphed into a civil war, and many governments have recognized the rebels as the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people. The rebels control the Euphrates river and much of the north of the country, with the Assad government controlling cities in the east.

The UN estimates that 70,000 people have been killed in the war.

The fighting continues to put pressure on Syria's minority Christian population, leading to fears that more Syrians will join the many Christians who have already left the Middle East. About 10 percent of Syria's population is Christian.

More than 1 million refugees from Syria have flooded into Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iraq, and inside Syria another estimated 2.5 million human persons are internally displaced. Of the 1 million refugees, in January it was estimated that some 300,000 were Christian.

The Syrian rebels are divided among secularists who support a Western-style democracy, and Islamists who may impose sharia law on the nation.

The European Union has levied an arms embargo against Syria, but some are calling for it to be lifted. Both Russia and Iran are believed to be arming the Syrian government, and this week both the UK and France have indicated a desire to arm the rebels.

"If we want to take individual action, (and) we think that is in our national interest, of course we are free to do so," UK prime minister David Cameron said at a March 15 press conference.