Despite Salvini, the pope defends immigrants …

From Rome

While the struggles within the Italian government do not stop because of immigrants, closed ports, illegal landings and the work of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who "rescue migrants" in the Mediterranean, Pope Francis did not want to miss the sixth anniversary of his visit to the island of Lampedusa in 2013, a few months after his pontifical election. It was his first trip out of Rome and he wanted to do it in Lampedusa to honor the island itself, an example of welcoming migrants and migrants fleeing hunger, persecution and wars, but remember especially all the deaths at sea. And for that, at that moment, he went up on a small boat and threw wreaths of flowers to the sea.

Today, to remember his trip to Lampedusa and the dead in the sea, he has invited dozens of immigrants and celebrated Mbad for them in the Basilica of San Pedro. "On this sixth anniversary of my visit to Lampedusa," he said in the homily of Mbad, "I think of the" last "ones who cry out to the Lord every day, asking to be released from the evils that They are the last ones deceived and abandoned to die in the desert, they are the last tortured, abused and raped in detention camps, they are the last to defy the waves of a merciless sea; the last remaining in the fields of a reception too long to be described as temporary. "Sunday, at the Angelus celebrating at noon from the window of the papal building facing the Plaza de San Pedro, Francisco s' was remembered and publicly presented his grief after the dozens of deaths occurred in an immigration detention camp in Tajoura a few days ago, because of a bombing product of the ongoing war in Libya. "The international community can not tolerate events of this gravity," said the pope.

"These are people," the pontiff insisted, "it's not just about social or migratory issues – it's not just immigrants, in the sense that immigrants are first and foremost human beings, but also today the symbol of all the rejected of the globalized society (…) It is a great responsibility, brothers and sisters, which no one can be exempt from if we want to carry out the mission of salvation and liberation to which the Lord Himself has called us to collaborate. " Addressing the immigrants and refugees present at Mbad, he concluded: "I know that many of you, who arrived just a few months ago, are already helping the brothers and sisters who have come recently here I want to thank you for this beautiful sign of humanity, gratitude and solidarity. "

Some 250 refugees, immigrants and sea rescuers were present at Mbad. The pope did not want the press to be present so that there would be no interference at that time which should be a deep and meaningful memory of the thousands of people who have lost their lives in the Mediterranean. At the end of the celebration, Francisco greeted each of the immigrants.

Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the main opponent of migration in the current government and who takes all kinds of measures against the NGOs that help them – considered by him as "accomplices of drug traffickers". "Human beings" – Yesterday he also met the Defense Minister of his own government, Elisabetta Trenta. Did the minister say, in an interview with the newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, that the Sophia plan, proposed a few years ago by the European Union to control the Mediterranean with military ships, would be very useful today to prevent NGO ships in the Mediterranean. But Salvini is opposed because he says that they will then bring all immigrants to Italy to register them. And he insists that the best thing to do is to close the ports, as he has been doing for months.

But desperate barges, mostly African, continue to come to Italian things. And NGO boats – like Alex de Mediterranea, Saving Humans, recently – continue to rescue people and put pressure on Salvini's directives that they are accused of violating human rights. Salvini is still furious about the NGO boats he wants to fight at all costs, especially since he lost the "match" with Germany's Carola Rackete, who hijacked the Sea Watch 3 but did not could not stop him as he wished. .