"The confirmation, in the words of Foreign Minister Emma Bonino, that journalist Domenico Quirico, kidnapped in Syria on last April 9, is still alive is the only good news that comes to us from this martyred country, which seems doomed to an endless massacre. And, unfortunately, no positive development can be recorded on the fate of the two bishops of Aleppo, the Syrian-Orthodox Mar Gregorios Ibrahim and the Greek-Orthodox Paul Yazigi, also kidnapped and whose fate is unknown to us. This was the statement by prof. Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Community of Sant'Egidio.

"International diplomacy, so far powerless, Riccardi continued, was only able to record the figures of a real humanitarian disaster in Syria: a hundred thousand deaths, four million refugees, two million refugees and the risk of contagion of neighbouring Lebanon. Yet we can not give up hope for a political solution to the conflict, for which Europe first must spend all its energies. The experience of the Community of Sant'Egidio has shown us that war can never be regarded as a painful necessity, and that, instead, even in the most serious crisis situations, like the present one, we can construct the reasons of peace and, with the dialogue, the ground must be prepared for democratic development. The hope that Geneva II conference develops in this spirit, must move our feet. "