United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has denounced the killing of a Dutch Jesuit priest who was shot dead in Syria on Monday.

Frans van de Lugt, who was 75, had lived in Syria for 50 years and refused to leave despite the war. He made the headlines earlier this year with an urgent appeal for emergency aid for the people of Syria.

In a statement on the UN website, Ban said the murder as ‘an inhuman act of violence against a man valiantly stood by the Syrian people’.

The killing of the priest in the city of Homs is ‘the most recent tragedy that demonstrates that civilians urgently need protection’, Ban said.

Van der Lugt’s murder was confirmed on Monday by Jan Stuyt, secretary of the Dutch Jesuit Order, who told news agency AFP by phone: ‘A man came into his house, took him outside and shot him twice in the head. In front of his house.’

His death was reported globally by news agencies such as the American AP and by broadcasting companies ranging from the BBC to Al-Jazeera, all of whom saw him as a symbol of the indominability and neighbourliness in Homs.

According to some reports, the priest may have been killed by followers of Al-Nusra, a branch of Al-Qaeda.