Pope urges compassion for migrants

Refugees protest to be let through Greece-Macedonia border

VATICAN CITY, March 27, (Agencies): Pope Francis on Sunday spoke out against the “rejection” of refugees as the European migrant crisis saw its latest desperate scenes on the Greek border with Macedonia.

The pontiff used his Easter address to urge people to offer “welcome and assistance” to those fleeing war and poverty, as Europe struggles with its worst migration crisis since World War II.

Countries along Europe’s “Balkan route” have toughened their stance on migrants in recent weeks, closing their borders to those seeking to transit in search of a better life in the continent’s wealthier northern states.

The shutdown has led to a bottleneck at the Greece-Macedonia frontier, where the Greek authorities have been trying to evacuate an estimated 11,500 people stranded at the squalid Idomeni camp.

But on Sunday, dozens of migrants who had left, rushed back to the camp following a rumour that journalists and Red Cross officials would help them force their way across the fence into Macedonia.

The EU and Turkey struck a deal earlier this month that will see new migrants arriving on the Greek islands returned to Turkey, in the hope of discouraging them from making the dangerous sea crossing.

Decried

During Good Friday prayers, the pope decried what he called Europe’s “indifferent and anaesthetised conscience” over migrants and on Sunday he took up the theme again.

“The Easter message of the risen Christ... invites us not to forget those men and women seeking a better future, an ever more numerous throng of migrants and refugees... fleeing from war, hunger, poverty and social injustice,” the pope said.

“All too often, these brothers and sisters of ours meet along the way with death or, in any event, rejection by those who could offer them welcome and assistance.”

Francis has long called for the global community to open its doors to refugees and fight xenophobia -- appeals which have intensified since the controversial EU-Turkey deal.

In his Easter address, the pope also referred to Syria’s “lengthy conflict, with its sad wake of destruction, death, contempt for humanitarian law”, voicing hope for a positive result from UN-brokered peace talks that opened in Geneva in mid-March and are to resume in April.

Syria’s five-year conflict has killed more than 270,000 people and forced millions to flee their homes, with neighbouring countries bearing the brunt of the refugee crisis.

The United Nations and human rights groups have condemned the EUTurkey deal as unethical and possibly illegal, but it appears to have dramatically slowed the tide of refugees crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to the Greek islands.

Before the deal, thousands of migrants were landing every day on the islands. This week, this number fell to 600 on Tuesday, 260 on Wednesday and zero on Thursday.

Greek authorities have used the relative calm to put in place logistics to send people back to Turkey, including the deployment of 4,000 security personnel and asylum experts.

But the closure of the Balkan route, used by hundreds of thousands of mi- grants arriving in Europe over the last two years, has left around 50,000 migrants stuck in Greece.

In Idomeni, about 250 people gathered by the border fence, singing and shouting slogans, an AFP correspondent said, in a largely peaceful demonstration watched by Greek police in riot gear.

Some in the crowd attempted to move towards the police line but were blocked by others who formed a human chain, the correspondent said.

Security was tight as Francis presided over an Easter mass with huge crowds gathered below the central balcony in St Peter’s Basilica, in which he spoke of a spate of recent attacks, including Tuesday’s attacks in Brussels that killed 28 people.

He condemned “terrorism, that blind and brutal form of violence which continues to shed blood in different parts of the world, as in the recent attacks in Belgium, Turkey, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, and Ivory Coast”.

Protested

In Athens, hundreds of migrants stranded at a makeshift Greek camp protested near the border with Macedonia on Sunday, demanding that the border be opened as they clung to hopes of making it into Europe despite new EU moves to send some refugees back.

Around 50,000 migrants and refugees remain trapped in Greece after a domino of border closures by countries along the Balkan route has prevented them from continuing their journey into wealthier European countries. Many live in squalid conditions in tents near the town of Idomeni at the border with Macedonia.

Some 400 protesters gathered at the camp on Sunday, waving white nap- kins and holding signs that read “open the border”. A man with a megaphone led them singing folk songs in Arabic.

Greek police formed a line to prevent the protesters from moving to the fence that separates the camp from Macedonia.

“We’re here today, and everyday, because we won’t give up. We protest here everyday for the sake of women and children,” said a Syrian woman, Hana. “We are humans and we have rights, this is why we are here today and we will keep protesting until the borders open.”

Greece has said it was a priority that migrants left the Idomeni camp and has boosted efforts to convince them to move to nearby shelters. It was also speeding up the creation of reception centres for up to 30,000 migrants to help cope with a sharp rise in numbers because of border closures.

The European Union and Turkey have agreed to stop the migrant flow to Europe in return for political and financial concessions for Ankara, in a bid to seal off the main route by which people have poured across the Aegean islands.

Under the EU-Turkey deal, hundreds of new arrivals have been detained since March 20, while refugees or migrants whose applications fail will be sent back to Turkey.

About one million people arrived in Greece last year, fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and other countries in the Middle East and Africa.

Dozens of hopeful refugees, some carrying babies, rushed to Greece’s overwhelmed Idomeni camp on the sealed border with Macedonia on Sunday following rumours that the frontier would be forced open.