Caritas Italiana: EU and Int Comm so far absent in migrant tragedy

(Vatican Radio) Migrants and refugees seeking a better life in Europe have died by the thousands in the Mediterranean Sea in recent years while fleeing poverty and bloodshed in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

The precise figure of deaths is unknown. But the ill-documented toll is rising again Sunday as rescuers search for an estimated 700 people lost at sea after a boat capsized off the coast of Libya. 

A major search and rescue operation conducted by the Italian Coast Guard is ongoing and officials have confirmed 24 deaths and 28 people rescued, but the death toll is expected to rise.

Pope Francis on Sunday issued a heartfelt appeal to the International Community to take swift and decisive action to avoid more tragedies of migrants seeking a better life.

His cry comes on the heels of many other appeals by himself, by organizations such as Jesuit Refugee Service and by the United Nations who are warning that the exodus can only increase in the current world scenario of conflict and persecution.
 
Linda Bordoni asked Paolo Beccegato, vice Director of the Caritas Italiana, the Italian branch of the Church’s Caritas aid agency, how many more tragedies will it take before concrete action is implemented by rich nations to save lives…

Listen to the interview:

Hopefully Paolo Beccegato says, “this is the highest peak this tragedy will reach and we really hope that something is going to change”.

“We really hope the words of Pope Francis will be heard by the international community and by the European community because so far they have been almost absent” he says.

Beccegato says that the “globalization of indifference” so often denounced by the Pope has is radicated and is still taking place both on the political side and on the main-stream mediatic side because – he says – the media seems only to take notice of the ongoing tragedy only when there is a major disaster. 

Beccegato says that it is true that Italy bears the brunt of having to deal with the issue alone as its European partners look the other way, but he also points out that we must be aware that at the same time there are other countries that are hosting millions of refugees from Syria, especially Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

In Southern Europe he says “we have been receiving people from Africa, from Asia from the Middle East as the Mediterranean Sea is a kind of a corridor” for so many trying to enter Europe.

That’s why – Beccegato says – “we have to be aware of the contexts that are behind these situations, but also of the fact that we are really a very rich community, and that in percentage the countries mentioned before – Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey – are hosting many more people compared with their population”.

So – he says – we have the  responsibility both of “taking care more actively of what happens in the war scenarios” and of taking into consideration the effects in our own countries.

Speaking of the involvement of Caritas Italiana in the emergency Beccegato says that in particular in 2011 and this year – the sheer numbers of people coming through Italy into Europe – has meant that his organization has hosted  of thousands of people in Caritas Centers “especially children and people with difficulties”.

“It is a daily experience we are facing and it is, in a certain way, very positive because we are meeting so many people, their stories, their experiences – and we can really say these people are brothers” and they must not be treated like enemies or like foreigners that we don’t know, he says.

He says that these people are frightened and in need and that they are always eager to offer their collaboration, to integrate and to cooperate in our society “so we really need to change our attitude and our mentality” he says.