ROME - Three hospitals in Syria will provide a total of 15,000 free treatments to impoverished Syrian citizens in a programme called "Open Hospitals" supported by the Apostolic Nuncio to Syria, Cardinal Mario Zenari, and created by the Italian NGO AVSI Foundation.



The programme aims to reach 50,000 free treatments within the next two years.



Card. Zenari will present the programme on May 31 in a meeting at the Italian Embassy to the Holy See.



The programme aims to respond to the neediest people in Syria, whose suffering has been dramatically exacerbated by the civil war in the country, which has been going on since 2011.



In Aleppo, more than two million people do not have access to hospitals, and over a million people have no access to hospitals in Damascus.



The project will be offered in these two cities at three non-profit hospitals: Italian Hospital and French Hospital in Damascus, and St. Louis Hopsital in Aleppo.