Pope Francis recalled this Sunday, in his Easter Message, “the victims of the many conflicts around the world”, launching an appeal for peace and asking that “the logic of weapons” be resisted. The leader of the Catholic Church spoke about the Gaza Strip and Ukraine, but also about the often forgotten conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, the Sahel region, Cabo Delgado (Mozambique) or Myanmar, without forgetting the violence in Haiti, the victims of global terrorism or human trafficking and migrants.
“War is always absurd, war is always a defeat. Let us not allow increasingly strong winds of war to blow over Europe and the Mediterranean”, said Francis in the Message Urbi et Orbi (to the city and to the world), delivered from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica. In the square, there were more than 60 thousand faithful. “Let us not surrender to the logic of weapons and rearmament. Peace is never built with weapons, but by extending our hands and opening our hearts,” he stated.
Regarding the two main conflicts, the Pope defended an exchange of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine – “all for all” – and an “immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip”. He also insisted on guarantees for access to humanitarian aid in the Palestinian enclave, as well as the immediate release of Israeli hostages who have been in the hands of the Hamas terrorist group since October 7th. “Let us not allow the ongoing hostilities to continue to seriously affect the already exhausted civilian population, especially children”, remembering that they “in lands where there are wars, have already forgotten how to smile”.
The Pope’s appeals were of no use. In Ukraine, Russian bombings against critical infrastructure in the Lviv region killed at least two people. In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli attacks on Al-Aqsa Hospital left at least four dead and 17 injured, according to the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. According to the accounts of the authorities in Gaza, controlled by Hamas, at least 77 Palestinians died in just 24 hours.
