Long a Survivor in Syria, a Dutch Priest Is Slain in Homs
The New York Times reports on the killing of Rev. Frans van der Lugt, a Dutch Jesuit priest “who became a symbol of suffering and compassion in the war-ravaged Old City district of Homs.” A decades-long resident of the now-besieged city, he was shot to death Monday morning by a lone gunman.”
“After Syrian government forces isolated and laid siege to the rebel-held Old City for more than a year, a truce in January allowed the evacuation of 1,500 people, both civilians and fighters. But Father Frans, as he was known, insisted on remaining in the monastery where he had lived for decades, offering refuge to Muslim and Christian families alike and sharing their deprivation and trauma.”
After the shooting, the city’s warring parties were quick to point fingers. “The death of the priest is a scandal for the rebels,” said Mahmoud Taha, an anti-government activist in Talbiseh, told the Times, speculating that local opposition fighters had become radicalized. “They no longer accept anyone but those who are like them.”
U.N. Has to Cut Syria Food Rations for Lack of Donor Funds
The World Food Programme says it has been forced to cut food parcel deliveries to Syria by one-fifth due to donor shortages, Reuters reports. The WFP delivered food to 4.1 million people inside the country last month.
“Donor countries pledged $2.3 billion for aid agencies helping Syria at a conference in Kuwait in January, but only $1.1 billion has been received so far, including $250 million handed over by Kuwait on Monday. The delay meant that the standard family food basket for five people, which includes rice, bulgur wheat, pasta, pulses, vegetable oil, sugar, salt and wheat flour, had to be cut by 20 percent in March to allow more people to be fed, WFP said.”
UNHCR said in a statement that it needed “more than $1.6 billion to fund fully its operations this year in response to the crisis, but has received only 22 percent to date.”
Hezbollah Chief Says Threat to Syrian Regime is Over
AFP reports on Hassan Nasrallah’s interview with Lebanon’s al-Safir newspaper, in which the Hezbollah leader, an Assad ally, said that “the phase of bringing down the regime or bringing down the state is over.”
Nasrallah added that “I think we have passed the danger of division” of Syria. “They cannot overthrow the regime, but they can wage a war of attrition … In my view, the pressure on the regime in the coming phase will be less than in the past three years, in terms of political pressure, media pressure and pressure on the ground.”
He dismissed the ongoing rebel offensive in the Alawite stronghold of Latakia province, calling talk of rebel gains there an “exaggeration,” a ‘limited operation … but it created a big fuss in the media. For all the talk about the big battle to come, we’ve seen nothing of it so far.”
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