{"id":11515,"date":"2014-04-07T16:08:27","date_gmt":"2014-04-07T16:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=11515"},"modified":"2014-04-07T16:08:27","modified_gmt":"2014-04-07T16:08:27","slug":"syria-dutch-priest-fr-van-der-lugt-shot-dead-in-homs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=11515","title":{"rendered":"Syria: Dutch priest Fr van der Lugt shot dead in Homs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Fr<\/a>
Fr van der Lugt arrived in Syria in 1966 and considered it to be his home<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Dutch priest well-known for refusing to leave the besieged Syrian city of Homs has been shot dead by a gunman.<\/p>\n

Frans van der Lugt, who was in his 70s, had become a renowned figure in the rebel-held area that has been blockaded by government forces for nearly two years.<\/p>\n

He had refused to be evacuated, saying he would not leave Homs while there were still Christians in the city.<\/p>\n

The motive behind Fr van der Lugt’s killing is unclear.<\/p>\n

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group, said he was shot twice in the head.<\/p>\n

Jan Stuyt, secretary of the Dutch Jesuit Order, confirmed to AFP news agency that Fr van der Lugt had been killed.<\/p>\n

“A man came into his house, took him outside and shot him twice in the head. In the street in front of his house,” Mr Stuyt said.<\/p>\n

Fr van der Lugt spent nearly five decades in Syria and considered the country to be his home.<\/p>\n

“The Syrian people have given me so much, so much kindness, inspiration and everything they have. If the Syrian people are suffering now, I want to share their pain and their difficulties,” he told AFP in February.<\/p>\n

He stayed on even as some 1,400 people were evacuated from the city during a UN-supervised operation earlier this year.<\/p>\n

A Jesuit, Mr Van der Lugt arrived in Syria in 1966 after spending two years in Lebanon studying Arabic.<\/p>\n

He lived in a Jesuit monastery, where he ministered to the area’s remaining Christians and tried to help poor families.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

“I don’t see people as Muslims or Christian, I see a human being first and foremost,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the Vatican praised Mr van der Lugt as a “man of peace,” and expressed “great pain” over his death.<\/p>\n

“This is the death of a man of peace, who showed great courage in remaining loyal to the Syrian people despite an extremely risky and difficult situation,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said.<\/p>\n

Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans called the murder “cowardly” and said Mr Van der Lugt had “brought nothing but good to Homs.”<\/p>\n

“Fr Frans deserves our thanks and our respect. He must be able to count on our commitment to help end this misery,” Mr Timmermans added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Dutch priest well-known for refusing to leave the besieged Syrian city of Homs has been shot dead by a gunman. Frans van der Lugt, who was in his 70s, had become a renowned figure in the rebel-held area that has been blockaded by government forces for nearly two years. He had refused to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":11516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-11515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}