VATICAN CITY -- Food, cooking fuel, jobs and, especially, hope are hard to come by in Syria, said two Catholic leaders reflecting on the 10th anniversary of the war.

AMMAN, Jordan -- The worsening coronavirus pandemic and economic conditions in Syria are further deepening poverty and hardship for Christians, who find themselves trapped in a political stalemate, religious freedom advocates say.

AMMAN, Jordan -- Parts of Syria's north where Kurds, Christians and Yazidis have practiced religious freedom in recent years are reportedly again under attack by mainly Turkish military and their allied Syrian Islamist fighters.

VATICAN CITY -- Cardinal Mario Zenari, the nuncio to Syria, said he is raising special prayers these days to Sts. Cosmas and Damian, fourth-century physicians who offered free care for the sick in Syria.

For Christians in Syria and Iraq, Turkey’s invasion into Syria could be the tipping point to drive them out and hasten the end of Middle-East Christianity, fears Chaldean Catholic Bishop of Canada Bawai Soro.

Syrian Christians have been neglected, forgotten and cast aside like “the scum of the world,” charged the patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church.