<div dir="ltr"><h1 class="">Archbishop tells Canada: accepting refugees won’t help Syria</h1>
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<div class="">by <strong><a href="http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/author/philippe-vaillancourt/" title="Posts by Philippe Vaillancourt" rel="author">Philippe Vaillancourt</a></strong></div>
<div class="">posted Monday, 2 May 2016<br><a href="http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2016/05/02/archbishop-tells-canada-accepting-refugees-wont-help-syria/">http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2016/05/02/archbishop-tells-canada-accepting-refugees-wont-help-syria/</a><br></div>
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<div class=""><img src="http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/content/uploads/2016/05/aleppo-800x500.jpg" class="" alt="In this image made from video and posted online from Validated UGC, a Civil Defense worker carries a child after airstrikes hit Aleppo, Syria, last Thursday (Validated UGC via AP video)" height="500" width="800"> <div class="">
In this image made from video and posted online from Validated
UGC, a Civil Defense worker carries a child after airstrikes hit Aleppo,
Syria, last Thursday (Validated UGC via AP video) </div>
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<p class=""><span style="background-color:rgb(182,215,168)"><b><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">Seeing refugees being resettled in Canada 'hurts us a lot',</span> says Archbishop of Aleppo</b></span></p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(182,215,168)"><b>Archbishop Jean-Clément Jeanbart, Melkite Catholic archbishop of
Aleppo, Syria, has said he<span style="background-color:rgb(255,229,153)"> would like to see Canada help Syrians to stay
in Syria instead of </span><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">accepting them as refugees.</span></b></span></p>
<p>During a visit to Montreal he was asked what he thought about Canada welcoming 25,000 Syrian refugees in the past few months.</p>
<p>He said: “We’re not happy when we see the Canadian government moving
refugees and facilitating their integration. It hurts us. A lot.”</p>
<p>Archbishop Jeanbart knows Canada well. Some of his family lives in
Montreal. He said he has visited Canada about 20 times in his lifetime.</p>
<p>However, he said, <span style="background-color:rgb(255,229,153)"><b>he would rather see the Canadian government making
more efforts to allow the Syrian population to stay in Syria.</b></span></p>
<p>“It has to help them stay where they are, to have the bare
necessities, but also to find peace. And to get it over with these
rebels, these terrorists, and drive both sides to talk. To find a
political solution.”</p>
<p>The archbishop said he thinks <span style="background-color:rgb(182,215,168)"><b>Canadians are not aware enough of what’s happening in Syria.</b></span></p><span style="background-color:rgb(182,215,168)"><b>
</b></span><p><span style="background-color:rgb(182,215,168)"><b>“They pity the Syrians and the Christians. But do they really know
about their problems? No, I don’t think so. Because if they did, they
would have made efforts to end this war, to prevent it from continuing.”</b></span></p>
<p>He spoke about one family in Aleppo torn apart when their house was
destroyed by a bomb. A 13-year-old son, Fouad Banna, was killed
instantly. </p>
<p>“It was awful: a bomb that the rebels deliberately launched on a
Christian neighbourhood, on a popular borough. It has blown everything
apart, destroyed countless houses. Such was the case of Fouad’s home,”
he said.</p>
<p>Fouad’s mother and father were badly injured. Struggling for their
lives in an intensive care unit, they were not able to attend the
funeral of their son, a ceremony led by Archbishop Jeanbart. Fouad’s
sister, Rosy, 17, was the only member of the family left unscathed by
the attack.</p>
<p>“When I visited her, to see what I could do for her, she nestled
against me and said: ‘Lord, pray so that my parents stay alive.’ I then
asked her: ‘But what can I do for you?’ She answered: ‘Pray.’</p>
<p>“It’s a glimpse of the hardships happening back home. To understand
the tragedy that struck our city, we have to look at its story, what it
was in the past. <span style="background-color:rgb(255,229,153)"><b>The city is 8,000 years old. It gave civilisation to
the world,”</b></span> said Archbishop Jeanbart, giving details about what Aleppo
brought to history, culture, science and economics. Located in northern
Syria, Aleppo was until recently a driving force for the country’s
economy, providing work to 1.2 million workers and hosting 150,000
university students.</p>
<p>“More than half of the city’s population left over the last four or
five years,” added the archbishop who has served there since 1995.</p>
<p>While Archbishop Jeanbart was in Montreal in late April, the fighting
continued in Aleppo, and more civilians were killed. On social media,
new photos of death and destruction were once again shared, showing yet
another face of distress. In front of all this desolation, Archbishop
Jeanbart said he worked to stay positive.</p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>“I pray, and my prayer gives me a supplement of courage and faith,” he said.</b></span></p><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>
</b></span><p><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>“We will reconstruct our country. We want to build and stay,</b></span>” he
said, pounding the arm of his chair. “<span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>We want it to be our country and
stay in this country where Christianity was born, and give a testimony
of Christ’s love and charity, and of the possibility to live together,
as men believing in God and respectful of one another.</b></span>”</p></div><div id="DDB4FAA8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><br> <table style="border-top:1px solid #aaabb6">
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