Pope Francis offered comfort to migrants and blasted what he called the ‘narrow self-interest and nationalism’ shown by European countries ‘that condemns to death those on the fringes’.

On a visit to the Greek island of Lesbos, he walked through the Mavrovouni camp, which holds about 2,300 people, stopping to greet dozens of refugees and giving a high five to a young African boy.

Francis first visited the island, one of the main entry points for migrants, in 2016 and took 12 Syrian refugees back to Italy with him aboard the papal plane.

The pope lamented that ‘little has changed’ since then, saying the Mediterranean, where thousands have died trying to cross from North Africa to Europe, was still ‘a grim cemetery without tombstones’.

During a speech on Sunday, he said: ‘I am here once again, to meet you and to assure you of my closeness. I say it from the heart.

‘I am here to see your faces and look into your eyes. Eyes full of fear and expectancy, eyes that have seen violence and poverty, eyes streaked by too many tears.’

For the second time in as many days, Francis chided those who use the migration crisis for political ends, saying there are some in Europe ‘who persist in treating the problem as a matter that does not concern them’.

And departing from his prepared address, the pope said it was ‘distressing’ to hear that some leaders wished to build a wall and put up barbed wire to keep immigrants out.

Poland’s prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki has called for the EU to jointly finance a border wall to stem the tide of migrants coming from the Middle East through Belarus.

Pleading for better treatment for refugees, Francis said: ‘We are in the age of walls and barbed wire.

‘To be sure, we can appreciate people’s fears and insecurities, the difficulties and dangers involved, and the general sense of fatigue and frustration, exacerbated by the economic and pandemic crises.

‘Yet problems are not resolved and coexistence improved by building walls higher, but by joining forces to care for others according to the concrete possibilities of each and in respect for the law, always giving primacy to the inalienable value of the life of every human being.’

While the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that great challenges must be confronted together, with similar progress seen in efforts to tackle climate change, the pontiff remarked that ‘all this seems to be terribly absent when it comes to migration’.

‘It is easy to stir up public opinion by instilling fear of others,’ he said, adding: ‘The remote causes should be attacked, not the poor people who pay the consequences and are even used for political propaganda.’

Francis listened intently as one of the camp’s residents, Christian Tango Mukaya, a Congolese father of three, thanked him for his show of solidarity and appeal to Europe to let refugees in.

Mr Mukaya lost track of his wife and their third child during their journey and is hoping his visibility with the pope might reunite them.

He said: ‘We always have this hope that one day we may all be together again. We hope that the pope coming can bring change.

‘We plead with the pope to help us, to speak on our behalf to Europe, to help us.’

More than one million people, many fleeing war in Iraq and Syria, crossed from Turkey into Greece during 2015 and 2016, with Lesbos the busiest Greek crossing point.

The flow may have ebbed in Lesbos, but it hasn’t stopped and anti-migrant sentiment in Greece and beyond has only hardened in the ensuing years, with the latest flashpoint on the EU’s Polish border with Belarus.

Greece has recently built a steel wall along a section of the Greek-Turkish land border and is intercepting boats transporting migrants from the Turkish side.

It denies allegations that it is carrying out summary deportations of migrants reaching Greek territory but human rights groups say numerous such pushbacks have occurred.

Ahead of Sunday’s stop by Francis, human rights groups have stepped up their criticism of Greece’s treatment of migrants and of tougher migration policies among the EU’s 27 members.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Source: Read Full Article