Pope Francis has taken 12 Syrian migrants back with him to the Vatican after visiting a camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.<\/p>\n
The three families, including six children, are all Muslim and had their homes bombed during the Syrian war.<\/p>\n
The Vatican said in a statement that Pope Francis wanted to “make a gesture of welcome” to the refugees.<\/p>\n
Thousands of migrants are now stuck on Lesbos after last month’s EU-Turkey deal to try to ease the flow.<\/p>\n
All of those leaving with the Pope were already living on Lesbos before the deal was implemented, the Vatican said.<\/p>\n
They were reportedly selected from lots drawn, and will be looked after initially by the Sant’Egidio community, known for their charity work.<\/p>\n
Under the EU-Turkey agreement, migrants arriving illegally on the Greek islands from Turkey after 20 March will be deported unless they successfully claim for asylum.<\/p>\n
In return, for every Syrian returned to Turkey, the EU will take another Syrian directly from Turkey.<\/p>\n
The EU-Turkey deal aims partly at deterring people making the dangerous sea crossing<\/p>\n
The migrants are travelling on the same plane as the Pope back to the Vatican<\/p>\n
Pope Francis earlier told migrants living in the Moria camp – some of whom are facing being sent back – “you are not alone”.<\/p>\n
About 3,000 people are being held in the camp on Lesbos, some of whom lined the streets with banners pleading for help as the Pope arrived.<\/p>\n
Some wept, others threw themselves at his feet or chanted “freedom”.<\/p>\n
In his speech, the Pope acknowledged “the great sacrifice” the people in the camp had made, saying he wanted to “draw the attention of the world to this grave humanitarian crisis”.<\/p>\n
He told the camp’s residents: “Do not lose hope. The greatest gift we can offer to one another is love.”
\nGreek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who also met the pontiff, said the visit “sends a message that surpasses Greece’s and Europe’s borders”.<\/p>\n
The Vatican has stressed the Pope’s visit was purely humanitarian and religious in nature and should not be seen as a criticism of the deportations.<\/p>\n
In September, the Pope made space in the Vatican apartments for two refugee families, urging Catholics across Europe to play their part to resolve the crisis.<\/p>\n
He also visited the Italian island of Lampedusa in 2013 to show similar support for migrants after dozens died trying to reach it.<\/p>\n
Migrant arrivals in Greece have fallen significantly this year, following the closure of borders and the announcement of the EU-Turkey deal.<\/p>\n
In the week to 13 April, arrivals in Greece were 76% lower than the previous week, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.<\/p>\n
But over the same period arrivals into Italy surged, according to the IOM – 173% higher than the previous week.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pope Francis has taken 12 Syrian migrants back with him to the Vatican after visiting a camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. The three families, including six children, are all Muslim and had their homes bombed during the Syrian war. The Vatican said in a statement that Pope Francis wanted to “make a gesture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":207301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=207294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/207301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=207294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=207294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=207294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}