Immigration
EN | IT – A few weeks ago, Syrian refugees were shot and injured by Turkish border guards. Eight people lost their lives, including four children. Reports on ill-treatment of refugees at the Syrian-Turkish border are not new. It would be new if the Eu would publicly recognise these atrocities and draw the logical solution to review the EU-Turkey deal signed in March. Instead the Eu prefers to look away or close its eyes, so that this deal may be upheld.
EN | IT – “’Death and life have contended in that combat stupendous': the death of dozens of people in the Mediterranean and the rescue of an orphan girl from Cameroon on the ship of the Navy remember and actualize the Easter message. It ‘s a struggle that according to Christian hope will result in life, but which always asks for more commitment and responsibility”. It’s what asserts Mgr. Gian Carlo Perego, Director general of the Migrantes Foundation (Italian Church) after the recent shipwrecks that have caused the deaths of dozens of people.
EN | IT – The European Commission seemed to want to revise the Dublin Regulation III on the access of asylum seekers in Europe. On the evening of 4th May, in Brussels, it fell short of expectations, ignoring the proposals of a centralized European asylum system and the opening of legal and safe channels of arrival.
EN | IT – The humanitarian flash journey of the Pope to the island of Lesbos in Greece has confirmed the Pope’s attention to the most vulnerable in our time and in various parts of the world, that is the migrants and asylum seekers. Meanwhile, in the Mediterranean, on the anniversary of the 800 migrants died last year in the Channel of Sicily, there are probably another 400 deaths.
EN | IT – Who can really believe that 53 thousand people are a problem for a continent of 500 million people? And an even smaller issue for Europe are the two thousand (2000!) migrants living in the Macedonian and Serbian camps. It is really so that there is no alternative for them than a nerve-wracking and endless waiting?
EN | IT – Austria has launched the construction of a barrier at the Brenner Pass to stop any and extraordinary flow of migrants from Italy. The European Commission, through the words of its spokesman Natasha Bertaud, expresses concern about the materialization of such a plan, that hinders the principle of free movement, a fundamental principle of the EU, while the Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann, also under the pressure of the upcoming elections, confirms that “the management of the border at the Brenner and new legislation on asylum are not desirable, but are necessary and right”.
EN | IT | FR | DE – European leaders need to think about opening up more legal and safe routes for forced migrants. There are concrete proposals on the table; in November 2014, several faith-based organizations issued a joint policy paper on safe and legal paths to protection in Europe. Such measures should be given top priority. Then the European Union would be living up to its own standards and values.
EN | IT – Thousands of refugees arriving every day, too large a flow for openings that, gradually, are closing, leaving people hopeless – adults, women and children -, blocked to wait.
EN | IT | FR | DE – A survey recently carried out among the European Bishops’ Conferences reveals that the Church in Europe has positively responded to the urgent needs of refugees and migrants, and to the appeal of the Holy Father to host refugees.
EN | IT – While Europe timewastes on the scant distribution of 32,000 people, at a cost of over € 6000 per migrant (with the same money he could be accepted for a year in a family or in a municipality, without counting the additional resources which have been wasted by events as ‘Mafia capital’) in the Mediterranean death happens again and again.
