ROME - "In Aleppo, innocent citizens continue to die without the international community proposing an initiative to save the population of Aleppo from a conflict that, in over two years, has caused thousands of casualties and displaced persons". After the recent bombing of Saed al-Ansari School in the district of Mashhad in Aleppo, which caused the death of five pupils aged between 12 and 15 and three teachers, the founder of the Community of Sant'Egidio, Andrea Riccardi, invokes a truce to allow the cessation of the fighting and the rescue of the inhabitants: "One can no longer stand still in front of the daily multiplication of victims, a tragedy that sees how a city, a place of secular coexistence between Christians and Muslims, becomes duller and duller. The international community must take urgent action on the conflicting parties to come to the immediate opening of a humanitarian corridor to allow the rescue of the inhabitants. To do nothing is equivalent to the choice of letting die, in a terribly short time, those that have remained in the city”.

Andrea Riccardi is the author of "Save Aleppo", an appeal launched on 22 June 2014 that received the support of thousands of signatures including a good number of representatives of the institutions and the world of culture. "Save Aleppo - says the appeal - is worth more than a partisan statement on the field! Humanitarian corridors and supplies for civilians must be prepared in the belief that "it is necessary to impose peace in the name of those that suffer" and “to rebuild a future for this historic crossroads for many peoples".