Speaking to journalists last night on the return flight from Geneva, Pope Francis highlighted the dangers posed by the human traffickers on the Libyan coast to the migrants and refugees they hold captive. The traffickers are paid large sums of money to launch the migrants and refugees into the Mediterranean in unsafe boats, where they may be rescued by charities who then try to land them in Europe.
But before they leave the African coast, Pope Francis said, the refugees and migrants they are held in detention camps that evoke the worst conditions of camps in the Second World War. “In the Second World War, they saw these things!” Pope Francis said. “The mutilations …torture…forced labour.”
“I have seen the photographs of the detention centres controlled by the traffickers,” Pope Francis said. “Traffickers immediately separate the women from the men … women and babies go … God knows where!”
The Pope said there was still a problem in the “collective unconscious” regarding African people. He did not want to offend, he said, but “it is the truth: Africa is exploited. And Africa is to be preyed on … this is in the subconscious …’eh, they are Africans’. Always ‘land of slaves’.
The Pope said the activities of the traffickers were a “worldwide” concern. Many European leaders are thinking of an emergency plan to invest in these countries, he said, “to invest intelligently, to give work and education”.
This kind of investment could change things, he said, “because the African people have many cultural riches, many, and they have a great intelligence. The children are very intelligent and they, with a good education, can go far.” However, at the moment, he said, world leaders would have to make an agreement among themselves to go forward with “emergency fixes”.
He reaffirmed the obligation of the wealthier countries “to welcome, to accompany, to place, to integrate”.
“This is the criteria for all refugees,” Pope Francis said. “Then I have said that every country should do this with the virtue of the rule of prudence, because a country should welcome as many refugees as it can and as many as it can integrate, educate, assimilate, give work to.” The Pope singled out Italy, Greece, Turkey , Lebanon, Jordan and Spain for their “generosity”.
According to figures published by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) on 4 May this year, 22,439 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in the first 122 days of 2018 with 42 per cent arriving in Italy and the remainder divided between Greece (38 per cent) and Spain (20 per cent). The IOM reported 615 people dead or missing. Through the same period in 2017, it said, there were 45,540 arrivals across the region and 184,793 at the same time in 2016.
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