After Pope Francis’s letter to Syria’s President Assad and his appeal “to commit oneself with all one’s energy to protect civilians… it is and urgent and imperative obligation!”, now French bishops are also entering the field to support the population in Aleppo. In a declaration made known this morning and published in the site, too, the permanent Council of the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF) expressed much concern about the situation of the people in Aleppo. “While the international community is making just indignation statements – wrote the bishops – the strategic play of the powers present in the battlefield is completely ignoring the human side. The people die under bombs, are forced to exodus, or are being killed”. Today, denounced the bishops, “people miss everything: the humanitarian situation is terrible”. “Together with Pope Francis – it is said in the declaration whose first signature is the one of Monsignor Georges Pontier, Archbishop of Marseille and President of CEF – the French Bishops’ Conference made an appeal “to maximum commitment to protect civilians…. It is an urgent and imperative obligation!”. According to the bishops, “this situation makes each of us, the elected, the persons in charge, and all citizens, feel responsible for welcoming migrants and foreigners. We cannot shut our eyes in front of the situation of refugees in our country. We are supposed to welcome them, accompanying them for a long period. For thousands of people, this situation is often shameful, in particular, in the Ile-de-France, where we pretend to take care of them but we are just moving them a few kilometres”. While Christmas is approaching, the bishops are asking all the French “not to lower their arms, and to sympathise with the people suffering, the near ones and the far ones”. Apart from Msgr. Pontier, the document was signed by two Vice Presidents Pierre-Marie Carrè and Pascal Delannoy, and the other seven members of the Permanent Council.