MULTI-FAITH communities in East Lancashire have a particular responsibility to pray for peace and work for justice as the United States continues to blitz Afghanistan, the Bishop of Blackburn has told the Evening Telegraph.

As missiles and bombs continued to rain on military installations and the terrorist training camps of Osama bin Laden, the Rt Rev Alan Chesters said: "I would underline how our faith must lead to a sharing with each other in the quest for stability, in the pain of the present moment."

And he added that he had seen how family and community life in East Lancashire provided a symbol of how faith continued to work.

He said that perhaps it was particularly so at this time of tension and crisis.

He said he was concerned that the outburst of hostilities had also set up the potential for a deepening humanitarian crisis.

Refugees were fleeing from Afghanistan.

It was obscene, he added, that farmers in the UK were producing more food than we were prepared to buy, whilst we saw on TV the horrendous plight of people who were starving.

"The responsibility of all communities, but perhaps particularly here in Lancashire where so many live in multi-faith communities, is to pray for peace and work for stability," he said.