Pope Francis To Visit Greek Island
KABUL: (MEP) Pope Francis is planning to pay a visit in Greece on Saturday to show support for refugees trying to reach Europe, according to the Vatican spokesman.
Nearly a million people, many fleeing war, persecution and poverty in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, have risked their lives in rickety boats from Turkey, crossing to Lesbos before heading to the Greek mainland and onwards to western Europe.
“It’s not like a refugee camp, it’s like a prison,” said Sayed Parwez from behind the razor wire and a chain-link fence at Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.
“It’s like Guantánamo — it’s no different,” the Afghan national told NBC News. “We are living right here like prisoners. Now under one tent we are living 20, 25 people. It is unbelievable, inhumane.”
Lesbos has been a key entry point into Europe for migrants in the past year.
Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, said the April 16 visit to the island of Lesbos is “fundamentally humanitarian” in purpose. It is “rooted in Pope Francis’ concern for migrants, a concern that the Pope shares with the Greek Orthodox Church and with Patriarch Bartholomew.”
The Pope will meet with refugees and lunch with them. Then he will sign a joint declaration with two Eastern Orthodox archbishops: Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, and Ieronymos II of Athens.
