Pope Francis has appealed to countries at war to release prisoners and offered special prayers for those who have endured torture.

At the end of his weekly general audience, Pope Francis said that he knew “our thoughts, all of ours, go at this time to people in wars. We think of the Holy Land: Palestine, Israel. We think of Ukraine, the tormented Ukraine.”

Pope Francis also spoke about “the prisoners of war: may the Lord move the will to set them all free.”

“And speaking of prisoners, those who are tortured come to mind,” he said. “The torture of prisoners is a very terrible thing; it is inhuman” and an attack on human dignity.

Pope Francis did not mention a specific country when talking about torture.

The U.N. special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment told the U.N. Human Rights Council in March that in armed conflicts around the globe “torture is increasingly being applied as a standard brutal practice rather than as a grave crime of exception.”

The rapporteur, Alice Jill Edwards, focused specifically on Russia’s war on Ukraine.