Pope Francesco on migrants and refugees in Lampedusa

Pope Francesco on migrants and refugees in Lampedusa

 By Belarmino D. Saguing, Rome, Italy 09.06.2013 1253 ICT

Teenage migrants stranded for weeks in poor conditions on an Italian island visited by Pope Francis this week are the true victims of an immigration system that can fail the most vulnerable, charity operators say.

After the pope on Monday travelled to Lampedusa and called for an end to indifference to the plight of refugees around the world, charities said one example was that of the unaccompanied minors he met with.

For many migrants and refugees who crossed the Mediteranean, Lampedusa is the haven from all the tribulations they have encountered when they scaped from their lands of origin, going thru harrowing experiences along the way. War, famine, political repressions  and extreme poverty has driven them away from their homelands, braving all the dangers and hardships and even death just to reach this haven, only to be met by indifference and inpersonal bureaucracy by the Italian authorities.

The people of Lampedusa, if they get their way, welcome these people, but they could only stare unable to give the migrants as they are herded by the military to inadequate ‘centers of accomodation’.

For more than twenty years, This small island has been a stage of sufferings for thousands of migrants and refugees who choosed to  face death in the sea than to return to the nightmares in their native lands only to be treated like criminals on their destination. The recent laws enacted by Italy’s extreme right government (Bossi-Fini Law and the Security Package) has made them de facto criminals and even prospective terrorist.

No help is in view from other countries despite the protests from UNCHR, and many other international organizations, and even from the moderate Italians themselves. Most of them ended up in gulag type reception centers (I have visited one center near Bari when we staged a solidarity protest  2007 and witnessed the animal-like living conditions among the inmates) which are in fact prison camp enclosed in double barbed-wire fence overseered by armed soldiers. In the period between 2005-2008, hundreds has been returned to Libya to be tortured and to die in military prisons.

Lampedusa has been a symbol of shame for most Italians. The failure of humanity and solidarity. Aside from the inhuman reception the refugees received on landing to the island, the sea around the island has been the scene of violation of the law of the sea when many international shipping has ignored the survivors from sunken vessels carrying illegal immigrants. Thousands of men, women and children drowned there in the past ten years.

News Item: Teen refugees on pope-visit island 'failed by Italy' http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h7Zc0mZ9iy7JwKZkxyamCeSkXhTQ?docId=CNG.e934da62fbb60ae894452858d7a609c1.231

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