Pope Francis’ message from Lesbos: “Let’s not let the Mare Nostruum become a Mare Mortuum”

The Pope Francisco has returned to the island of Lesbos with the aim of dignify refugees before the indifference of European countries. There, it is already getting too cold and the visit of the Pontiff has brought some warmth and understanding. “Has come to see how we live“said Joshue, a 17-year-old migrant, for whom this visit brings” hope and strength. “

Few times had so many official cars and prelates been seen on the Greek island, who have waited while Francisco walked the camp, without a mask, and exchanged a few words with the refugees, stopping especially with the children, who represent 27% of the migrants trapped in Lesbos.

The pope’s message has been resounding: “Let’s not let the Mare Nostrum become a bleak Mare Mortuum“, has pleaded the pontiff, who has called to stop” this shipwreck of civilization. “

Migrations, the Pope affirmed, “are a world problem” and “a humanitarian crisis that concerns everyone”, but which no one seems to be dealing with, despite the fact that “people, human lives are at stake”.

Francisco has also warned that “closures and nationalisms, as history teaches us, lead to disastrous consequences” and has criticized that “the migration issue is always delegated to others, as if no one cared and it was just a useless burden that some are forced to endure “.

Thus, he has ordered not to look the other way: “Let us not quickly escape from the crude images of their small lifeless bodies on the beaches,” he urged, remembering the children who died in shipwrecks in the Mediterranean. “We have to be ashamed,” denounced the pope, who also has criticized “the indifference that kills” and “personal and national selfishness.”

For Francisco, who was already in Lesbos five years ago, “little has changed on the migration issue” since then: “In Europe there are still people who persist in treating the problem as an issue that does not concern them.” “This is tragic”, he has sentenced.