🇬🇷🇬🇷 - Greek MEP Nikolas Farantouris, a member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Security & Defense visits Damascus at the invitation of Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch John X.

"Reliable data indicate 7,000 Christians and Alawites slaughtered and unprecedented atrocities against civilians. Christian and other communities with a millennial presence in this region are at risk of extinction.

"The new Islamic regime is leading Syria into an Islamic state and is claiming that it cannot control the paramilitaries and the gangs associated with them who attack innocent civilians.

"Patriarch John X made a shocking appeal yesterday, Orthodox Sunday, to stop the bloodshed, while in our private meeting he pointed out the tragic shortages of food and medicine that Christians are facing.

"I call on the Greek Government and the governments of [EU] Member States, to act NOW. Neither Greece nor the EU can continue to show tolerance and be limited to ceremonial visits and courtesies with the Islamic regime for investments and 'business' while thousands of civilians are being slaughtered with its acquiescence, if not its guidance. Measures must be taken here and now before it is entirely too late."