NEWS

World Refugee Day: working together with refugees

In a world where violence forces thousands of families to flee for their lives each day, it is time to show that the global public stands with refugees. This is the reason that, less than two decades ago, brought the UN General Assembly to designite 20 June as World Refugee Day.

Syrian woman and baby. (Credit: UNHCR / S. Rich / April 2013)

While supporting the UN intentions, COMECE and the various European Episcopal Conferences, together with other faith-based organizations, have been working on the European Public Policies towards refugees and migrants, inviting the EU institutions and the national governments to work together and do their fair share for refugees, applying a new type of public policy that respects refugees as human beings and not as numbers.

Supporting those who flee from war and poverty is a priority for the entire Church. Pope Francis issued various calls in favor of refugees and migrants: in one of his last speech on the topic, the Holy Father stressed the fundamental importance to accompany “children, foreigners and […] the ones who are alone with no means to protect themselves, forced to live far from their homeland and their families”.

Following Pope Francis’ call, COMECE supports the idea of adopting adequate national procedures and mutually agreed plans of cooperation between countries of origin and of destination, with the intention of eliminating the causes of forced migration.

On this subject, COMECE recently organized an event on the root causes of migration and one on the challenges of integration, and discussed within COMECE Working Group on Migration and Asylum, Catholic initiatives like humanitarian corridors in order to avoid the new tragedies on the Mediterranean Sea.