![\"Credit_Photo_Unit_via_Flickr_CC_BY_NC_20__CNA-01\"](\"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Credit_Photo_Unit_via_Flickr_CC_BY_NC_20__CNA-01.jpg\")
Foto: Flickr CC \/ NC_20 CNA<\/p><\/div> Lahore is the second largest city of Pakistan, in the north east Punjab Province. \u201cFor some time schools and universities have been protected like fortresses, <\/strong>as well as churches and mosques that have armed guards. A public park could never have been guarded in such a way. It is shocking that most of the victims are children and families, many of them celebrating the feast of Easter,\u201d they write from the Focolare community in Lahore. It was 19:00 local time, March 27th, when a suicide bomber blew himself up <\/strong>in the Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park. Pope Francis<\/a> called it a \u201ccowardly and senseless\u201d crime as he recalled Easter in Pakisatn that was \u201cbloodied by a detestable attack that slaughtered so many innocents\u201d including 29 children and many women. \u201cAlong with everyone else,\u201d they continue from Lahore, \u201cwe want to once again embrace <\/strong>this face of Jesus Forsaken so that he might transform this great suffering into new momentum to love, new light to illuminate minds and strengthen all people of good will. We\u2019re praying for all the victims, the wounded and the families, that hatred will not beget hatred.\u201d \u201cI was on my way to the park with my grandkids, <\/strong>and at one point I felt like I had to go home again,\u201d says one friend who was saved from the massacre. \u201cOur relatives were there at the moment of the explosion, but none of them were harmed. One of them was an 18 year old boy who tried to help a child who later died in his arms.\u201d \u201cI invite us all to pray to the Lord for the many victims and their loved ones,\u201d <\/strong>the Pope went on to say, appealing to \u201ccivil authorities and all members of society\u201d in Pakistan \u201cthat they would make every effort to return peace and serenity to the population and, in particular, to the religious minorities that are most vulnerable.\u201d \u201cThe sacred dignity with which they suffer the pain <\/strong>is striking,\u201d the people of Lahore testify, \u201cand how much solidarity has been shown. The wounded were driven in private cars, without fear or hesitation, to nearby hospitals. The hospital staff worked without stopping. The appeal for blood donations was immediately answered by long queues at hospitals. The suffering that people have been going through for some time now and seemed to have reached its limit, has produced a new attitude, new hope that is expressed in small gestures that demonstrate a common wish: Peace.\u201d \u00a0<\/strong>\u201cIn many places people are out on the streets with lit candles. <\/strong>The protests were carried out peacefully. In many newspapers around the world there is talk about attacks on Christians and perhaps that\u2019s true, but here it seems to us like an attack against humanity which is the same thing. The victims are Christians and Muslims. The gestures of solidarity from abroad have been very well received, such as the offing of the lights on the Eiffel Tower. They did help Pakistan to feel that it wasn\u2019t all alone in suffering this very painful and absurd tragedy.\u201d Maria Chiara De Lorenzo<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After the tragic Easter attack that took over 70 lives and left 320 wounded, Pakistan and the city of Lahore is in the midst of mourning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}