Pope Francis made a fresh call on Thursday to end to the"terrible violence" causing suffering to hundreds of thousands of innocent children in Syria and Iraq.
"We are troubled by what continues to happen in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria," Francis said in a statement.
"There, hundreds of thousands of innocent children, women and men are afflicted the terrible violence of bloody conflicts, that nothing can justify or permit," he added.
"So much suffering, an end to which I implore," he said after a meeting at the Vatican with Gewargis III, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East.
Gewargis III urged Francis to keep praying "in the name of thousands of displaced Christians of Iraq and Syria and in the name of those who have already paid for their faith with their lives and their blood [...] to end the their pain and persecution," Vatican Radio reported.
The Iraqi native "humbly" suggested convening a Christian leaders to "study and understand how and why such unimaginable tragedies are occurring in the Middle East," Vatican Radio said.
