Storm after Pope likens centres for refugees to Nazi camps

ThE Pope has upset Jewish leaders after comparing refugee centres to concentration camps.

his remarks were met with disgust, with critics saying there was no comparison between refugee camps and ‘the magnitude’ of the holocaust.

The Pope had urged governments to get migrants and refugees out of holding centres, saying many of them had become ‘concentration camps’.

he made the comment during a visit to Rome Basilica where he met migrants on Saturday, and was speaking of his trip to a camp on Lesbos last year.

he said a Muslim refugee from the Middle East told him Islamists had slit his Christian wife’s throat when she refused to throw her crucifix on the ground.

The pontiff said: ‘I don’t know if he managed to leave that concentration camp, because refugee camps, many of them, are of

‘No comparison to that tragedy’

concentration [type] because of the great number of people left there inside them.’

David harris, head of the American Jewish Committee, said: ‘The conditions in which migrants are currently living in some European countries may well be difficult, and deserve still greater international attention, but concentration camps they certainly are not.

‘The Nazis... used concentration camps for slave labour and the extermination of millions. There is no comparison to the magnitude of that tragedy.’

The Pope had praised nations helping refugees and thanked them for ‘bearing this extra burden, because it seems that international accords are more important than human rights’.

he appeared to be referring to agreements that keep migrants from crossing borders, such as deals the European Union has made with Libya and Turkey.