aleppo

Judith Deem Dupree 4-25-2018

Watching the evening news

He stumbles along in broken gait, pale face frozen
in a blank stare, and all the long, long river of moving
bodies pass him by. Even the frail move faster,
framing him against their blur of anguish, like a film
that runs slow motion, etching one small
centerpiece against the screen of the unwilling eye.

Upon his back—as if coupled there, ribs fused to ribs—
rides an ancient man, more skeletal than fleshed,
skull rocking gently, rhythmically, arms crooked
absurdly over the hard-set slope of shoulders, hands
snatching at the brittle air. Thin-stick shanks
dangle loosely over the young man’s arms, bobbing
with the plunge and stagger of his legs—like
metronomes that pace the broken angle of each step.

And still they come, he comes—this strange, two-
headed creature all its own, with its four unseeing eyes,
its single haunted soul. Like a crab caught in an
unremitting tide—an awful metamorphosis, a horror
that we cannot look upon, nor speak of, nor forget.

Still he comes, inseparable, inexorable. The dying and
the young—a ghost that rides the shoulders of the world.

Image via RNS/Reuters/Stefano Rellandini

Pope Francis used his traditional Easter Sunday message to call the bombing of a refugee convoy near Aleppo, Syria, a “despicable attack”, and urged world leaders to “prevent the spread of conflicts” despite mounting tensions in Syria and North Korea.

In his Easter blessing, known as “Urbi et Orbi” (“to the city and the world”), the pope urged the faithful to remember “all those forced to leave their homelands as a result of armed conflicts, terrorist attacks, famine, and oppressive regimes.”

the Web Editors 1-11-2017

Image via www.GlynLowe.com/flickr.com

On Jan. 11 the Senate confirmation hearing for former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, for the office of Secretary of State, began, reports NPR. In his hearing Tillerson admitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he has yet to discuss with President-Elect Trump U.S. foreign policy as it regards to Russia.

He also made a statement that seemed in partial opposition to the use of sanctions against Russia and other countries, stating that they “are going to harm American businesses.” However, he relented to the idea that sanctions have the ability to be a “powerful and important tool.”

Samantha Power

Samantha Power. Image via United States Mission Geneva

Withstanding some unforeseen breakthrough, Power will not succeed in persuading Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime in Syria. Her plea is passionate, but likely not a winning argument. The best arguments don’t always win. But I believe I know why she still fights so hard, and it’s a lesson for all of us who care.

n refugees from Aleppo

Syrian refugees from Aleppo wait at the refugee camp in Essalame, Syria on Feb. 2, 2016. kafeinkolik / Shutterstock.com

On Dec. 14, Syrian pro-government forces breached the fragile ceasefire agreement, shelling besieged neighborhoods of Aleppo and banning civilians from fleeing. Addressing Syria, Iran, and Russia, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, asked, “Are you incapable of shame? … Is there no execution of a child that gets under your skin? Is there literally nothing that shames you?”

Anna Lekas Miller 12-19-2016

Image via Jordi Bernabeu Farrús/Flickr

“This is one of the most difficult days in Aleppo’s history,” Ibrahim Abdul Laith told Sojourners over a series of WhatsApp voice notes. “We endured difficulties under the shelling, and under the siege, but even though the situation was difficult, we were fighting for our city.”

Later in the messages, his voice took on a somber tone.

“Now we are being asked to leave.”

the Web Editors 12-19-2016

Image via Gregg Carlstrom/flickr.com

On Dec. 19 the Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov was assassinated in Ankara, Turkey, reports Reuters. The ambassador was giving a speech at an art gallery when a gunman fatally shot him. Three other people were also wounded and the gunman appears to have been killed.

“Don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria!” the gunman shouted after the shooting.

the Web Editors 12-19-2016

Image via Osugi/Shutterstock.com

On Dec. 19 the United Nations Security Council unanimously voted to send UN observers to Aleppo to oversee the evacuation of civilians, reports Al Jazeera. UN observers will travel soon to Aleppo as will personnel who can administer aid.

“For the first time in numerous attempts to get unanimity on the situation on Aleppo, all of the 15 UN Security Council members have supported this resolution to send UN monitors in Aleppo,” said journalist Mike Hanna.

Jim Wallis 12-15-2016

Many people are still reeling from the election results and become more appalled every day with the appointments and behavior of the President -elect Donald Trump.

And many of our Sojourners readers are asking themselves and us: What can I do?

The politics going on now are indeed beyond our control — but we can control what we do with our own faith and with our own actions.

the Web Editors 12-14-2016

On Dec. 14 buses that were meant to evacuate citizens and rebel fighters out of Aleppo, Syria, after a raid and massacre by the Syrian government, left — empty, reports the New York Times. Gunfire has been heard by people who are still in the city, and it is believed that a ceasefire established on Dec. 13 — between the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and rebel fighters — has dissolved.

Image via RNS/Reuters/Remo Casilli

Pope Francis said those bombing civilians in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo will be “accountable to God” for their actions as he renewed his appeals for peace amid an intensifying civil war in that country.

It also emerged on Sept. 28 that the pontiff has asked a Catholic charity to auction the cars used on a recent trip to Poland and use the proceeds to help Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

The pope’s emotional appeal for peace in Syria came during his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square in which he voiced his heartfelt support and prayers for the people of Aleppo.

the Web Editors 8-26-2016

3. Standing Rock Sioux Bring Pipeline Protest to D.C.

WATCH: Images from the protest and interview with speaker Mark Charles.

4. The Stanford Rape Case Judge Steps Aside

The California judge who sentenced Brock Turner to only six months after a three-count sexual assault conviction has voluntarily stepped aside and is transferring to the civil division.

5. Priests vs. Drug Lords in Argentina

“It’s part of a bigger problem,” Padre Isasmendi says. “It’s part of marginalization.”

Rishika Pardikar 8-18-2016

Syrian refugee station in Turkey, July 17, 2015. kafeinkolik / Shutterstock.com

Images trigger empathy; to perceive tragedy, we need to see the victim. The effect is curiously more profound when we see the image of a single victim: While one death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic. The photo that emerged overnight of a bloodied 5-year-old boy, wounded in an air strike in Aleppo and rescued by the White Helmets, feels hauntingly familiar. It seems to be having the same effect as the first picture to break the heart of the world: that of Aylan Kurdi, a drowned 3-year-old boy lying face-down with his soaked red shirt and blue bottoms. That image, like that of 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh, lies imprinted on our minds. It was a simple photograph with an absolute truth: A kid died and his lifeless body washed up on the shore like a piece of wood or a discarded plastic bottle; at the moment nothing seemed more savage.

Smoke from burning tires blankets Aleppo. Activists say tires are set alight to create cover from warplanes. August 1, 2016. Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

Despite intense bombing and severe food shortages, several Carmelite nuns are refusing to abandon the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo and have appealed for urgent aid.

“The bombs are falling all around us, but we are not going to leave the people in their suffering,” said Sister Anne-Francoise, a French nun from a community of Discalced Carmelites in Aleppo. “The people here are suffering and dying.”

the Web Editors 5-27-2016

1. Killing Dylann Roof

Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Obama administration’s decision to seek the death penalty for the Charleston shooter: “The hammer of criminal justice is the preferred tool of a society that has run out of ideas.”

2. At Baylor, the Real Story Isn’t Hypocrisy. It’s the Victims of Sexual Assault.

“... this is a story much larger than Ken Starr and Baylor. This story is about power, and money, and institutions that claim to be faith-based but refuse to stand for victims and against violence.”

3. There’s a Software Used Across the Country to Predict Future Criminals. And It’s Biased Against Blacks.

Lives in the hands of algorithms—

the Web Editors 4-28-2016

An airstrike in Aleppo, Syria, has killed at least fourteen patients and staff at a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders. Among the dead is one of the last pediatricians in the city.

Neither the Syrian air force nor Russian military are currently taking responsibility for the attack. The United States and Russia agreed to support a truce between warring parties earlier this year, but those talks have largely broken down in recent months, according to The Washington Post. 

Kimberly Burge 3-09-2015

SOME OF THE WORLD’S oldest spiritual music has been recorded, and thus preserved—just in time—thanks to a punk-rock drummer/photographer.

The ancient city of Aleppo, Syria, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and considered one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Since 2012, when the Syrian civil war moved in to the area, Aleppo has been ravaged by fighting, and many of its inhabitants killed or made refugees.

Several years before the war began, Jason Hamacher embarked on an accidental odyssey to capture the sights and sounds of Aleppo, not knowing he might be the last to do so before the Old City, the historic city center, was destroyed.

Hamacher moved to Washington, D.C., in his teens and spent his high school years exploring a dual identity that would stick: Christian and son of a Southern Baptist preacher, and drummer in D.C.’s vibrant hardcore punk scene. Since 1993, he has recorded and toured with Frodus, Decahedron, Battery, and Regents. When he found himself between bands in 2005, he and some fellow musician friends who were also Christian vowed to search for new sounds in old spiritual music.

Marie Dennis 2-14-2013
JM LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images

Syrians wait for bread at a bakery in the northern city of Aleppo on December 31. JM LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to lose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?” wrote the ancient prophet Isaiah (58:6). As Christians around the world enter the season of Lent, the challenge of the prophets is to not enter into empty rituals, but to recommit ourselves to fearless acts of justice.

This Lent Christians are standing in solidarity with Syrians by joining a rolling fast launched by Pax Christi International. The acute suffering of civilian communities in Syria has been made immeasurably worse by a shortage of bread, Syrian’s staple food, caused in part by the deliberate bombing of bakeries.

Open to anyone concerned about the anguish of local communities caught in Syria’s civil war, the campaign, called “Bread is Life – Fast for a Just Peace in Syria,” is a direct response to the fact that many Syrians feel abandoned by the rest of the world.