The Mediterranean “is turning into a cold graveyard without gravestones. I beg you, let’s stop this wreck of civilization!“, launched the Supreme Pontiff before the migrants, on the second day of his visit to Greece.
At Mavrovouni camp, which continues to house some 2,200 asylum seekers in very difficult conditions, he was warmly welcomed by migrants, who flocked to the local containers and tents.
The Argentine pontiff greeted and blessed the families present, including many children. “Welcome!”, “We love you!”, You could hear.
Francisco hugged a child, and addressed a group of refugees. “I’m trying to help you,” he told them.
Then, under a tent, the Pope, visibly moved, heard the joyful songs of a group of exiles and lamented that the Mediterranean, “cradle of so many civilizations” is today “like a mirror of death.”
“Let’s not allow the ‘mare nostrum’ to become a bleak ‘mare mortuum’, let’s not let this sea of memories become the sea of oblivion”, urged in the presence of several religious leaders, the Greek President, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, the European Vice President, Margaritis Schinas, and the Greek Minister of Migration, Notis Mitarachi
Some 40 asylum seekers, mostly Catholics from Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), attended the Hail Mary prayer pronounced by the Pope.
Earlier, Christian Tango, a 31-year-old from Congo, addressed Francisco thanking him for his “spirit of humanity” in the face of “migrant and refugee children”, and asked him to pray that they would obtain “a safe place in Europe.”
Mavrovouni is a hastily built structure in a former army shooting range after the Moria Camp fire in September 2020. This unsanitary migrant camp was the largest in Europe.
In 2016, the island of Lesbos became the main gateway for thousands of migrants trying to reach Europe. “We are all migrants,” Francisco had said when he visited the Moria camp in April of that year.
Some refugees now hope to return with him to Rome, as he did in 2016. That year, he returned with 12 Syrian refugees. This time, 50 migrants will be transferred from Cyprus, where Francisco was Thursday and Friday.
In Athens, the possibility that some of Mavrovouni’s asylum seekers may accompany the Pope to Italy from Lesbos was not ruled out.
Three such courses have already been opened on the islands of Samos, Leros and Cos, and those on Lesbos and Chios are planned for next year. They are surrounded by barbed wire and closed with X-ray doors.
The pope’s visit to Lesbos, shorter than in 2016, will be followed on Sunday in Athens by a mass before some 2,500 faithful.
The main theme of his pontificate, the cause of refugees remains the cornerstone of this 35th trip.
Francisco “is convinced that the issue of migrants is the greatest humanitarian catastrophe after World War II,” according to Italian writer Marco Politi, who specializes in Vatican news.
In Athens on Saturday, the Supreme Pontiff criticized before the Greek leaders “the European community, torn by nationalist selfishness”, which “sometimes appears blocked and uncoordinated, instead of being an engine of solidarity.”
Source From: Ambito
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