EU plans to take in 50,000 more refugees
Pope launches awareness campaign about migrants’ plight
The EU unveiled plans yesterday to take at least 50,000 refugees directly from Africa, the Middle East and Turkey to discourage migrant boats from making the risky Mediterranean crossing.
The proposal involves admitting refugees to European Union countries over the next two years under the bloc’s resettlement process, which was introduced during the refugee crisis that hit the continent in 2015.
“We need to open real alternatives to taking perilous irregular journeys,” European Union Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told a news conference in Brussels.
The European Commission said in a statement that it was “recommending a new EU resettlement scheme to bring at least 50,000 of the most vulnerable persons in need of international protection to Europe over the next two years”.
Focus on Libya
The EU has already resettled 23,000 people from refugee camps in countries outside the EU under the scheme, particularly Turkey and Jordan, which were overwhelmed with people fleeing the war in Syria.
Resettlement would continue from those areas but there would be “increased focus” on Libya, Egypt, Niger, Sudan, Chad and Ethiopia, said.
“This will contribute to further stabilising migration flows along the Central Mediterranean route,” which mainly involves people making the dangerous crossing from Libya to Italy, it said.
The resettlement programme is different from the EU’s controversial refugee quotas, which involved moving refugees who had already reached Italy and Greece to other EU countries under compulsory quotas, and which ended on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis yesterday launched a two-year activism and awareness-raising campaign about the plight of refugees to counteract mounting anti-immigrant sentiment in the US, Europe and beyond. the commission
The campaign encourages people to actually meet with refugees and listen to their stories, rather than treat them as statistics clouded by negative stereotypes.
Francis, the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, launched the campaign during his weekly general audience, throwing his arms open to welcome the many refugees and asylum seekers who filled St. Peter’s Square.
He urged individuals and governments to welcome refugees with similarly open arms and share in their plight, as Jesus did. He said migrants are driven by the virtue of hope, to find a better life, and said receiving countries should share in that hope by welcoming them and integrating them.