Lesbos (Greece): Pope Francis returned Sunday to Lesbos, Greece Island at the heart of a large migration wave to Europe six years ago, after showing the European government in handling migrants and their current refugees during the second visit.
hit the country.
Francis aged 84 years will spend just two hours on the island, visiting a new holding center for migrants and asylum seekers and leading short prayer services.
On the previous visit in 2016, Francis brought back 12 Syrian Muslim refugees with him on the Pope’s plane.
The Pope was on a five-day visit to Cyprus and Greece which was dominated by the topic of migration.
In Cyprus on Friday he denounced “the culture of ignorance” which was shown to migrants and in Athens on Saturday, he urged the European government to take migrants “in proportion to the way each country.” “Europe continues to enter, falling prey to form a nationalist personal interest rather than being a solidarity machine.
Sometimes, it looks shaky and uncoordinated,” he said.
“In the past, ideological conflict prevents the construction of bridges between the east.
And Western Europe.
Today the migration problem has caused violations between South and North as well.” Francis said migrants and refugees today live through “horrendous modern odyssey,” referring to poetry Ancient Greek epic.
More than 1 million people, many wars escape in Iraq and Syria, cross from Turkey to Greece during 2015 and 2016, with the lesbos the busiest Greek intersection.
A crowded refugee camp in Moria on the island, which Pope visited in 2016 was destroyed by fire last year.
Francis will meet weeks with migrants in a replacement camp, lead prayer services and also spend time and expenditure.
Some time with family in their emergency home.
The Vatican is not a commitment to whether anyone will leave the island with Francis this time.
The Vatican on Saturday confirmed that, as part of Francis’s visit, 12 migrants currently living in Cyprus will be moved to Italy in the coming weeks and treated by Catholic charities in Rome.
Among those invited to be on stage with Francis on Sunday was Christian Tango Mukaya, Congo’s father who lost track of his wife on their journey and hoped his visibility to the Pope could reunite them.
“We always have this hope that one day we all can be together again.
That the family can be together again,” he said before Francis’s arrival.
Greece recently built steel walls along the border section of the Greek-Turkish land and intercepted ships carrying migrants from the Turkish side.
This denied the allegations that it was conducting a summary of migrant deportation which reached the Greek area but human rights groups said many pushbacks like that occurred.
Towards Sunday stop by Francis, human rights groups have increased their criticism of the treatment of Greek migrants and harder migration policies between 27 UE members.
Amnesty International said the new EU funded detention camp on Greece islands violated Athens’s commitment to provide international protection to those in need.
“Under international law and EU, asylum seekers should only be detained as a problem in the last effort,” Amnesty said.
“As we worry, the Greek authority hid behind the concept that is legally ambiguous about closed-controlled centers to eliminate their illegal asylum seekers.” The rights group asked Greece “to urge this decision.”