Pope Francis on Sunday prayed for peace in the Caucasus region after Armenia and Azerbaijan once more accused each other of shelling residential areas, in defiance of a pact to avoid the deliberate targeting of civilians in and around the mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
“I would like to renew my heartfelt appeal to the leaders of the warring parties to take action as soon as possible to stop the shedding of innocent blood”, Francis told his faithful gatherers in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly Angelus prayer.
After the Angelus prayer, the Argentinean pontiff also asked to pray for the victims of an earthquake that struck the Aegean coast of Turkey on Friday.