Photo: VINCENZO PINTO / AFP / Getty Images
For: EFE Updated 06 Feb 2022 , 17: 40 pm EST
The pope affirmed today that there are “concentration camps” for migrants in Libya, and asked the countries of the European Union (EU) to agree to achieve “a balance” , in an interview on an Italian public television program Rai in which he also spoke about forgiveness, about his friends and even about his passion for tango.
“ What is done with the migrants is criminal, they suffer so much to reach the sea, there are recordings about the concentration camps, I do use this word, from traffickers in Libya, what those who want to flee suffer, you can see in these recordings”, he said when asked by Fabio Fazio, presenter of “Che tempo che fa” on Rai 3.
The Pontiff referred to the Mediterranean as “the largest cemetery in Europe”, regretted that after all that suffering “they are rejected” and remembered gave “those ships that turn while waiting for a port” that the authorities are slow to grant.
“Each country must say how many migrants it must welcome, problem of internal politics, but the EU must agree and thus reach a balance”, he commented, citing Spain and Italy as the countries where the most migrants arrive, who must be “welcomed, accompanied, promoted and integrated” and more with the demographic decline because “people are needed and an integrated migrant helps the country,” he said.
Asked about the 19 migrants who recently died of cold in Europe, Francis referred to the “culture of indifference” and “the categories” of society that gives “the first place to wars” and “the second to people”.
And he gave the example of the war in Yemen, “for so many years they talk about it” but it is not solved because what counts is “the sale of arms”, he affirmed.
In a long interview from his residence in Santa Marta, in the Vatican, The pope referred to the need to “feel and touch” so as not to fall “into the temptation to look the other way”, as well as the fact that “the ability to be forgiven is a human right”.
Among many other issues, such as climate change, the need for parents to be close to their children or the danger of clericalism within the Catholic Church, Francis also answered some personal questions, such as that he has “few friends, but true ones” and “that he likes classical music and tango”.
Asked about if he had danced it, the pope with a certain irony replied that “a porteño who does not dance tango is not a porteño”.
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