Even poverty and deprivation “are destabilizing” the Middle East, because “there cannot be peace where there is underdevelopment”.
These were the words of Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Rai during a visit to a suburb in Tripoli on Sunday, January 18th. The suburb of Jabal Mohsen was the site of two suicide bombings on January 10th, which killed 9 people and left 30 wounded.
According to Fides, Patriarch Rai noted the factors that often destabilize the Middle East, where financial resources of extremist can use money to entice the poor to enroll new fighters.
With his visit the Patriarch wanted to offer his condolences in person to Assad Assi, head of the Alawite Muslim Council, and to the families of the victims, of Alawite confession.
