The Franciscan Church of the Immaculate Conception, with the adjacent friary and the residence of Mgr. Sylvester Carmel Magro OFM, Apostolic Vicar of Benghazi, Libya, have been attacked and ransacked by angry Muslim mobs during the disorders that took place in this town on 20 February.

According to an official communication by the General Curia of the Order of Friars Minor, the disorders that took place have forced the Franciscans who work in that diocese, two Filippinos and two Poles, together with the Bishop Mgr. Sylvester Carmel Magro OFM to leave the Franciscan friary and take refuge in Tripoli, along with the Franciscan sisters who work in the mentioned diocese. Neither the friars nor the sisters who work in Benghazi have suffered any damage.

The Franciscan church of Benghazi is one of just two Catholic Churches in Libya. The other church is that of Saint Francis in Tripoli, where Mgr. Giovanni Martinelli OFM, the Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli, resides, together with other Franciscans. The Libya Mission belongs to the Order of Friars Minor and is entrusted to the juridical care of the Maltese Francsican Province.

The Minister General of the Order, Fr. Jose Rodriguez Carballo OFM, has written a letter to the brothers who work in Libya, as well as to the Christians who live in Benghazi, where he confirmed his closeness to them in this moment of trial and reaffirmed the will of the Order to follow faithfully a history of pacific presence in the Muslim world that goes back to the year 1219, when Saint Francis meet the Sultan of Egypt Melek-el-Kamel.