Fr Frans van der Lugt, a 75-year-old psychologist, had remained in the rebel-controlled Old City throughout a 600-day siege by government forces.

He had been offered the chance to leave, but chose to stay.

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With the failure of United Nations-brokered peace talks in Geneva, Fr Frans Van der Lugt, told 'The Telegraph' that food has run out and starvation is beginning to cause people to lose their minds.

Speaking via Skype he described Homs as "a lawless jungle".

The 75 year old Dutch priest told of how residents, cut off for more than an year are developing mental health problems, leading to a breakdown of social order.

"We are trying our best to behave in a fraternal way so we don't turn on each other for the hunger", he said.

The priest took to using social media, posting a video on YouTube after the United Nations failed in its effort to get support for humanitarian aid.

For more than a year no food has been allowed in and no one is allowed out, he said.

Fr Van der Lugt, who has lived in Syria since 1966, told 'The Telegraph' the Old City used to be home to 60,000 Christians, with 10 churches in the besieged areas. "Now I find myself alone with only 66 other Christians," he said, adding that they have a close relationship with the Muslim residents who are also trapped in the siege.

"We are afraid that the international community has abandoned us. They look for their interests, this is politics, but they have to know that the Syrian people are suffering," he said.

Sources:

• The Telegraph
• Image: National Post

The Maronite Archbishop of Damascus Samir Nassar, labelled the Pope's action is "a very generous gesture".

"It is a gesture of closeness and solidarity that has a strong meaning for us in this Lenten time and of great suffering: it makes the universal Church feel closer to its faithful in difficulty".

"We keep in mind and we hope that the messages sent by Benedict XVI for a ceasefire, peace, dialogue, freedom in Syria are fulfilled", the Archbishop told Fides, the information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies.

The gesture comes amid reports that almost the entire Christian population of Homs has fled the Syrian city and the homes of Christians in Homs have been attacked and seized by fanatics.

Aid to the Church in Need, reports that 90% of Christians have been expelled amid what it is called 'an ongoing ethnic cleansing' of Christians by militant Islamic groups with links to Al Qaeda.

Sources

• CNS
• Fides
• Aid to the Church in Need
• Image: MSNBC