ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 9, 2023 / 18:40 pm
Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Bashar Warda recently expressed his concern to the papal foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that the war being fought between Israel and Hamas could spread throughout the Middle East.
Warda, a native of Iraq and the archbishop of Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, fears that a possible escalation in the conflict will end up unleashing a wave of migration in the Holy Land, which, he explained, would be devastating for the Christian community of the region, seriously affected by violence and poverty.
“Speaking on behalf of all the people — especially the minorities, who tend to suffer more than others, especially in conflict situations — please God, no more war,” Warda said, while asking all the leaders of the region to “calm the situation.”
“God forbid that this war goes beyond what we have been seeing of late. The settling of old scores would endanger the social cohesion in the whole region. The situation in Syria is not settled, nor has it settled in Iraq,” he noted.