Damascus: Several deaths in suicide assault on church in Syria | EUROtoday

At least 13 believers died in a suicide assault in a Christian church within the Syrian capital Damascus. Another 53 individuals suffered accidents to the explosion within the Mar-Elias Church, the Syrian Ministry of Health stated. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights based mostly in London said the variety of useless at 19.

According to the Syrian Ministry of the Interior, the murderer penetrated the church within the Christ district of Al-Duwaila with the submission of photographs. Then he blew himself up through the Sunday mass. The Ministry anticipated him to the Islamist terrorist group of Islamic State (IS).

Eyewitnesses said that they’d heard a loud explosion. Then they heard screams and noticed individuals strolling by the streets with blood -smeared faces.

Before the civil warfare, which started in 2015, the proportion of Christians within the Syrian inhabitants was eight to 10 p.c. Today 300,000 to 700,000 Christians nonetheless stay within the largely Muslim nation. Fundamentalist Islamists repeatedly carried out with excessive violence in opposition to Christian believers and their worshipers after 2015. The Al-Duwaila district has additionally been the goal of assaults lately.

The Syrian Minister of Information Hamsa Mostafa condemned the assault and described him as a terrorist assault. “This cowardly act is directed against the bourgeois values ​​that bring us together,” he wrote on the platform X. “We will not move away from our commitment to an equal citizens … and we also reaffirm the promise of the state to make all efforts to combat criminal organizations and to protect society from all attacks that threaten their security.”

After the autumn of long-term energy holder Bashar al-Assad, momentary president Ahmed al-Sharaa, the previous chief of an Islamist insurgent alliance, has promised to contain and shield minorities. However, violence occurred many times, together with the Shiite minority of the Alawites, which additionally belongs to Assad or Drusen.