The People of Aleppo Are Losing Hope, Says Bishop

The Catholic Herald (UK) ^ | 5/15/15 | Cindy Wooden

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Bishop Audo says that almost everyone would leave Aleppo if they could

The Chaldean Bishop Antoine Audo of Aleppo, Syria has said that the people of Aleppo are increasingly losing hope.

In an interview with Catholic News Service he said that over the past two months the people seem to have been losing all hope for an end to the war and the beginning of reconciliation.

Bishop Audo admitted that he, too, used to talk about his hope, “but now I have a tendency to say I am in an attitude of faith. I try to maintain myself in my faith as a Christian to continue and stay day by day, hour by hour. But for the majority of people, especially in Aleppo, they [are] losing any hope.”

Almost everyone would leave if they could, he said.

Daily life “is becoming more and more difficult and tiring”, he said. When the fighting first began in 2011, he said, the people of Aleppo held up well because the danger zones were far away.

“Now our situation is very bad, very difficult,” he said. “We are without electricity, without [running] water.”

“Something like 80 per cent of people in Aleppo are without jobs. So they don’t have any money to survive,” the bishop said.