Migrant deaths on Lampedusa are a ‘wake-up call’ for Africa

The deaths of more than 350 African migrants off the Italian island of Lampedusa last month has provoked “a wake-up call for Africa”, say African Catholic bishops, writes Ellen Teague.

The Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (Secam) reported last week that the bishops are “shocked and saddened” by the tragedy. They have blamed the lack of freedom in so many African countries, and urged the African Union to improve political and economic conditions that make people so desperate that they risk the dangerous journey by sea to Europe. Europe was urged to rethink immigration rules and treat migrants with compassion.

“The drama of migration, with a growing number of young people who risk their lives to leave Africa, reflects the depth of the malaise of a continent that is still dragging its feet to provide favourable conditions such as employment, education and good health,” said the bishops in a letter signed by the Ghanaian vice president of Secam, Archbishop Gabriel Anokye of Kumasi. It noted that many of the Lampedusa victims came from Eritrea, where press and religious freedoms are lacking; and from Somalia, where Al-Shabaab’s Islamic fundamentalists spread terror. “After over 50 years of independence, the continent is still engulfed in endless violence,” the bishops lamented.

The bishops of southern Africa have called on Catholics to pledge not to pay or offer bribes, in their campaign to expose widespread corruption. In their letter, “A Call to Examine Ourselves in the Widespread Practice of Corruption”, read out in churches in mid-October, the bishops of South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland said “corruption is theft from the poor” and “money diverted into the pockets of corrupt people could have been spent on housing for the homeless, on medicine for the sick or for other needs”.