Gunman kills Dutch priest in Syrian city of Homs<\/p>\n\n\n\n
THE TIMES OF INDIA<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Syrian priest and an activist group say a masked gunman has opened fire on a well-known, elderly priest in the central Syrian city of Homs, killing him instantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Homs-based priest Assad Nayyef and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights say the assailant shot to death 72-year-old Father Francis Van Der Lugt inside a monastery in the city’s Bustan al-Diwan neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Motives for the attack were not immediately known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the three-year civil war, Van Der Lught repeatedly refused to leave Bustan al-Diwan, a rebel stronghold that has been blockaded by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad for the past year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Van Der Lught had been living in Syria since 1964. He wouldn’t leave Homs while there were still Christians in blockaded areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Condemning the assassination, Ribal Al-Assad, Director of ODFS said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I am truly sorry to learn of this fatal attack against Father Francis Van Der Lugt, a person of great eminence who had devoted his life to the assistance of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was a crime of hate perpetrated by extremists who’s sole aim is to annihilate all those who do not conform to their narrow perverted ideology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Crimes like this must not go unpunished and those responsible must be fully held to account for their actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My thoughts and prayers are with the community, the victims and their families at this time.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gunman kills Dutch priest in Syrian city of Homs THE TIMES OF INDIA A Syrian priest and an activist group say a masked gunman has opened fire on a well-known, elderly priest in the central Syrian city of Homs, killing him instantly. Homs-based priest Assad Nayyef and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights say […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2002,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6383,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6376\/revisions\/6383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}