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Mourners carry coffins of Christian men killed during raid in Syria (CNS photo/Khaled al-Hariri, Reuters)

The Syrian Christian town of Sadad was taken over by Islamist militias in mid-October, then re-conquered by the Syrian army on Oct. 28. What the army discovered “is the most serious and biggest massacre of Christians in Syria in the past two years and a half,” said Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh, the Syriac Orthodox metropolitan of Homs and Hama. “Forty-five innocent civilians were martyred for no reason, and among them several women and children, many thrown into mass graves,” said the archbishop. Other civilians were threatened and terrorized. Thirty people were wounded and 10 are still missing, according to Archbishop Alnemeh. “For one week, 1,500 families were held as hostages and human shields,” he said. “All the houses of Sadad were robbed and property looted. The churches are damaged and desecrated.” He added, “We have shouted [for] aid to the world, but no one has listened to us. Where is the Christian conscience? Where is human conscience? Where are my brothers? I think of all those who are suffering today in mourning and discomfort: We ask everyone to pray for us.”

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