"When the elephants fight is the grass who suffers"
Old African proverb
The killing of innocent and unarmed civilians - regardless of the place of killing and the motives why it occurs - can never be considered an act of War and is totally inadmissible to consider it as "collateral damage in a conflict", because it is nothing else than coward brutal savagery and inhuman cruelty that no Political, Military, Religious or Ethnic reasons can explain or justify.
The recent slaughter of unarmed, innocent civilians attending a concert in a theatre in Moscow was just another tragic episode of this heartless savagery and inhuman cruelty, but is unfortunately equal to the frequent killings of unarmed and innocent civilians that we see every day in Ukraine, in Gaza, in Nigeria, in the Central African Republic, in Haiti or in northern Mozambique, and neither the places nor the motives - each different - distinguish one cruel massacre of innocents from all others. There are no good and bad killings of unarmed innocents, there are only brutal criminal killings of innocents, and innocent victims are only innocent victims, just as savage murderers are just savage assassins...
As coward, savage and brutal as the assassins who perpetrate the slaughter of innocents - and probably even worse than them - are the politicians and religious leaders who seek to gain political, military, religious and personal advantage from these massacres, in total disrespect for the memory of the victims.
The Prince Grand Master of the Federation of Autonomous Priories of the Sovereign Order of St John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta (KMFAP), in his name and on behalf of the Magisterial House, the Government of the State and the Knights and Dames of KMFAP, come to present the most heartfelt condolences to the families in grief of all the innocent victims of all conflicts. Victims are alike, all tears cried for them are alike, the personal tragedies of the victims' families are alike, because Death, Tragedy and Tears have no Religion, no Race, no Political creed...
His Eminent Highness Jose, Prince
Grand Master and Head of the State
Magisterial House, 25th March 2023
