, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20200904IPR86426/
Cardinal calls for resettlement of asylum-seekers from Greek island
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — By Barbe Fraze – Hours after a fire or fires sent thousands of migrants and refugees fleeing their tents and makeshift container homes at the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, a close aide to Pope Francis called for the permanent resettlement of all the residents.
“Since the time of the visit of the Holy Father (in 2016), we have been asking them to empty these concentration camps, but they let us take only the small groups that we have brought to Italy at the Vatican’s expense in collaboration with the Community of Sant’Egidio,” said Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner.
Asked about the fire, the cardinal, who has visited the Moria camp several times and accompanied small groups of asylum-seekers to Rome, told Catholic News Service that “sooner or later it was bound to happen.”
“The refugees who entered Europe” by arriving in Greece, but have been stuck in overcrowded camps there, “are at the limit of supporting such an inhuman situation,” the cardinal said. “It’s like their hope is being killed.”
While government officials said they were investigating the cause of the fire, the Greek news agency ANA said it broke out “at 2 a.m. after clashes began when some of the 35 refugees who tested positive for COVID-19 refused to move into isolation with their families.”
The Moria camp was built to house just over 2,000 asylum-seekers, but according to the U.N. Refugee Agency, when the fire broke out, the camp housed more than 12,000 asylum-seekers, “including more than 4,000 children as well as other vulnerable groups, including 407 unaccompanied children, pregnant women and elderly people.”
While many were given shelter in portable containers, thousands of others lived in tents on a hillside olive grove.
Daniela Pompei, who coordinates the refugee-resettlement program of the Sant’Egidio Community, told CNS Sept. 9 that she had been in contact that morning with many of the asylum-seekers at the camp.
“The situation is dramatic,” she said. “Our refugee friends in Moria are desperate” as most of the 12,000 people who were in the camp are now on the road leading to the sea. Local media were reporting that the Greek police and nearby residents were preventing the asylum seekers from moving into town.
Pompei said it is necessary to find immediate housing at least for the families with children and other vulnerable people and to feed all of them.
“They must set up structures quickly with military tents or use hotels if possible,” she said. “But even more importantly, they must transfer people to the mainland.”
As Pope Francis has said repeatedly, as part of the European Union, Greece — and Italy and Malta as well — cannot be expected to enforce Europe’s borders and its refugee policies alone.
Other nations must “accept the transfer of family groups and unaccompanied minors,” Pompei said. “It is necessary to help Greece and, particularly, to help the asylum seekers who are mainly Syrians, Afghans, Congolese and Cameroonians.”
Copyright ©2020 Catholic News Service / U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Send questions about this site to [email protected]
Global missionary efforts have taken a hit in the time of coronavirus
VATICAN CITY (RNS) — In a world marked by religious persecution and mounting secularism, being a missionary priest has never been easy.
Add closed frontiers and social distancing caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and the already tough job may seem impossible. But according to one missionary, Salesian priest Martin Lasarte, there is opportunity beyond the challenges.
“Being a missionary priest has always been hard, and it will forever be,” Lasarte told reporters during an online meeting Monday (Sept. 7).
“But in the various dark moments in history, the Lord always found a way,” he added.
Lasarte, who has been working as a missionary in Angola since the 1990s, is a member of the Department for Missions at the Salesian General House in Rome. He trains and prepares Catholic missionaries to travel all over the world.
The COVID-19 pandemic saw a “large reduction” in the realm of missionary work, aggravating an ongoing decline in the number of vocations and priests seeking to become missionaries. But while Catholicism may be waning in many Western countries, new communities are emerging in other parts of the world, especially in the Eastern Hemisphere, Lasarte said.
The Rev. Martin Lasarte. Photo via Salesians.org
“When it seems that the light is about to fade in some places, faith emerges once again somewhere else,” he said.
Korea, India and Vietnam have witnessed a significant surge in the number of Catholic faithful, the missionary said. But even in Asia, missionary work faces mounting challenges; he noted China’s authoritarian hold on the life of the faithful within its borders.
“In the past few years the situation in China has gotten much worse,” Lasarte said, adding that Beijing “looks at Catholicism and human rights with a certain preoccupation.”
China has been facing consistent criticism and outcry due to its treatment of religious minorities. Starting in 2009, the country forced over a million Uighur Muslims into mass detention camps, where there have been numerous reports of human rights violations.
Lasarte’s comments on religious persecution in China come at a time when Pope Francis and the Vatican are attempting to broker a deal with the up-and-coming superpower in an attempt to reconcile decade-long tensions.
The upcoming deal has come under fire from those who fear that the Catholic Church will, in the name of diplomacy, be unwilling to hold China accountable for its actions.
RELATED: Vatican’s China deal may protect Chinese Catholics, keep Pope Francis silent
In his experience as a missionary in Angola, Lasarte pointed out “the new colonization of China in Africa,” which has been occurring economically and politically in the country amid what he called “the silence of the world, the silence of Europe especially.”
It’s in Europe that Lasarte finds “the most preoccupying areas.” Once the home of missionary zeal and hot-blooded Catholics, the Old Continent has become residence to a tepid and secularized faith, with dwindling vocations and empty pews, said the missionary.
With more than 2 million cases of the coronavirus and almost 200,000 COVID-19 related deaths, Europe has been dealt a heavy blow by the pandemic — and so has its faith. Churches, confessionals and many sacraments were banned during the months of lockdown in many European countries.
Speaking to the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich said the pandemic set the Catholic Church back a decade in terms of faithful numbers and religious culture. The archbishop of Luxembourg said that Catholics in his own country “will be reduced in number” once they find that “life is very comfortable” without having to go to church.
According to Lasarte, the COVID-19 pandemic “has purified the church,” separating those who were “culture Catholics” attending Mass out of inertia from those who cannot live without it. The answer, according to the missionary, is not in demographics.
“We don’t have to seek large numbers,” he said, “but the authenticity of the gospel.”
Like many priests coming to terms with the declining state of religion in the west, Lasarte finds comfort in the “few, but good” approach.
This is the not the first time the Catholic priest attempted to switch the narrative amid a global crisis. In 2017, he wrote a letter to The New York Times that, while commending the publication for shedding light on the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, asked that reporters also take an interest in the positive work done by priests and laypeople.
He was also invited by Pope Francis to attend the 2019 summit of bishops on the Amazon region at the Vatican, focused on promoting the sustainable development of its inhabitants and their habitat, where he experienced the profound divisions underscoring the Catholic Church firsthand.
At the time, Lasarte accused bishops of clericalism and losing sight of the real needs of the faithful. Today, Salesian missionaries are hard at work trying to cure and prevent the spread of COVID-19 among Indigenous peoples.
Despite challenges from within and without, the missionary continues to have faith that even in reduced numbers “Catholics can be a significant minority.”
“Christianity still has a future,” he said.
Serious knowledge gaps must be bridged to battle deadly sepsis infections
Citing “recent studies”, WHO revealed that sepsis kills 11 million people each year, many of them children, and disables millions of others.
“The world must urgently step up efforts to improve data about sepsis so all countries can detect and treat this terrible condition in time,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Improved data needed
Against the backdrop that most studies had been conducted in the hospitals and intensive care units of high-income countries – with little evidence from the rest of the world – WHO underscored the “urgent need” for better data.
Furthermore, different definitions of sepsis, diagnostic criteria and hospital discharge coding, compound the difficultly in developing a clear understanding of the true global burden of this life-threatening infection.
“This means strengthening health information systems and ensuring access to rapid diagnostic tools, and quality care including safe and affordable medicines and vaccine”, the top WHO official spelled out.
What is sepsis?
Sepsis occurs in response to an infection. When it is not recognized early and managed promptly, it can lead to septic shock, multiple organ failure and death, according to the UN health agency.
And patients who are critically ill with severe COVID-19 and other infectious diseases are at higher risk of developing and dying from it.
WHO pointed out that only half of sepsis survivors will completely recover, the rest will either die within one year or be burdened by long-term disabilities.
Hardest hit
The deadly infection disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, including newborns, pregnant women and people living without means, where WHO says approximately 85 per cent of sepsis cases and sepsis-related deaths occur.
Moreover, children account for almost half of the 49 million cases each year, most of which could have been prevented through early diagnosis and appropriate clinical management.
Obstetric infections, including complications following abortion or infections following caesarean section, are the third most common cause of maternal mortality, the UN report revealed.
Global estimates show that for every 1,000 women giving birth, 11 women experience infection-related, severe organ dysfunction or death.
Healthcare sepsis
Sepsis frequently results from infections acquired in healthcare settings.
The report finds that almost half of sepsis patients in intensive care units acquired the infection in the hospital while noting that an estimated 27 per cent of those with sepsis in hospitals and 42 per cent in intensive care units, will die.
The world must urgently step up efforts to improve data about sepsis — WHO chief
WHO identified antimicrobial resistance as a major challenge in treating sepsis as it complicates the ability to combat infections, especially in healthcare facilities.
Changing the odds
The UN health agency elaborated on interventions to prevent as many as 84 per cent of newborn sepsis-related deaths, which include improved sanitation, water quality and infection prevention methods – such as hand hygiene – but stressed that these be coupled with early diagnosis, appropriate clinical management and access to safe and affordable medicines and vaccines.
At the same time, WHO called on the global community to improve high-quality data collection; scale-up global advocacy, and funding research; develop rapid, affordable diagnostic tools; and educate health workers and communities to infection risks and the need to promptly seek care.
‘Essential lessons’ from HIV fight can help coronavirus response, says UNAIDS
HIV fight – The study by UNAIDS, the UN agency working to stamp out HIV and AIDS, outlines how the world can leverage and build resilient health systems that address both pandemics.
“Our decades-long fight against HIV offers essential lessons. By heeding those lessons and working together, we can ensure that national health responses deliver on the promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the health and well-being of all”, said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Seize the moment
The report is entitled COVID-19 and HIV: 1 moment, 2 epidemics, 3 opportunities—how to seize the moment to learn, leverage and build a new way forward for everyone’s health and rights.
It reveals how key lessons learned in combating HIV can support accelerated action against COVID-19 without jeopardizing ongoing response to HIV and other health emergencies, thus providing a “unique opportunity” to reimagine systems for health, according to UNAIDS chief Winnie Byanyima.
“All eyes are on health, health systems and health care, with countries wanting to be better equipped to deal not only with COVID-19 but also to create healthier, more resilient societies,” she said.
“We can seize this opportunity by learning from HIV and from COVID-19 to make important changes to develop rights-based, equitable, people-centred systems for health.”
Leveraging innovative delivery
It highlights examples of how infrastructure for HIV response is being leveraged during the pandemic, including through innovative and community-led service delivery.
For example, some 280,000 new health-care workers trained by the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, are currently serving as first responders to COVID-19 in several low- and middle-income countries.
Additionally, 17 HIV treatment reference centres in Morocco, are being used in the first line of response for treating disease caused by the virus.
Increase investments
The report was released at the start of the two-day Virtual Fast-Track Cities 2020 conference on urban HIV and COVID-19 responses, which concludes on Thursday.
As countries continue to grapple with the new coronavirus, UNAIDS stressed that they must take steps to limit any interruption to HIV-related services. At the same time, supply chains providing essential commodities and technologies for HIV and other global health priorities must also be able to function.
“COVID-19 has caused significant loss of life in many communities, but notably in those where inequities make people more vulnerable to ill health. Leveraging of the HIV infrastructure and workforce has helped to mitigate what might have been a far worse situation”, said José M. Zuniga, President/Chief Executive Officer of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, co-organizers of the conference.
“However, with current HIV spending substantially off-track, the world urgently needs to increase investments in the responses to both HIV and COVID-19 and not siphon off one to respond to the other.”
Science, solidarity and solutions needed against climate change: Guterres
United in Science 2020, released on Wednesday, highlights the increasing and irreversible impacts of climate change on glaciers, oceans, nature, economies and it’s cost on people across the globe; manifest more and more often through disasters such as record heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods.
Speaking at the launch of the report, UN Secretary-General António Guterres emphasized that there is “no time to delay” if the world is to slow the trend of the devastating impacts of climate change, and limit temperate rise to 1.5 degree-Celsius.
“Whether we are tackling a pandemic or the climate crisis, it is clear that we need science, solidarity and decisive solutions,” said Mr. Guterres.
“We have a choice: business as usual, leading to further calamity; or we can use the recovery from COVID-19 to provide a real opportunity to put the world on a sustainable path,” he added.
The Secretary-General outlined six climate-related actions to shape the recovery from COVD-19, to ensure a sustainable future for coming generations.
The six actions include: delivering new jobs and businesses through a clean, green transition; making public bailouts contingent upon green jobs and sustainable growth; shifting away from grey and towards green economy, making societies and people more resilient; channelling public fund investments into sustainable sectors and projects that help the environment and the climate; factoring in climate risks and opportunities into the financial system as well as in public policymaking and infrastructure; and lastly – working together as an international community.
“As we work to tackle both the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis, I urge leaders to heed the facts in this report, unite behind the science and take urgent climate action,” added Mr. Guterres, urging governments to prepare new and ambitious national climate plans, the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), in advance of COP26.
“That is how we will build a safer, more sustainable future.”
Climate change continues unabated
In one of its key findings, the report states that atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations showed “no signs of peaking” and continued to increase to new records.
Benchmark stations in the WMO Global Atmosphere Watch network reported CO2 concentrations above 410 parts per million (ppm) during the first half of 2020, with Mauna Loa (Hawaii) and Cape Grim (Tasmania) at 414.38 ppm and 410.04 ppm, respectively, in July 2020, up from 411.74 ppm and 407.83 ppm the same month last year.
“Greenhouse gas concentrations – which are already at their highest levels in 3 million years – have continued to rise,” said Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), in the foreword to the report.
Meanwhile, large swathes of Siberia have seen a prolonged and remarkable heatwave during the first half of 2020, which would have been very unlikely without anthropogenic climate change. And now 2016-2020 is set to be the warmest five-year period on record, he continued.
“Whilst many aspects of our lives have been disrupted in 2020, climate change has continued unabated,” added Mr. Taalas.
Findings
According to the report, CO2 emissions in 2020 will fall by an estimated 4 to 7 per cent in 2020 due to COVID-19 confinement policies. The exact decline will depend on the continued trajectory of the pandemic and government responses to address it.
In April 2020, at the height of COVID-related lockdowns, daily global fossil CO2 emissions dropped by an unprecedented 17 per cent compared to the year prior. However, by early June, the emissions had mostly returned to within 5 per cent below 2019 levels.
It notes that though the emissions gap – the difference between what we need to do and what we are actually doing to tackle climate change – is wide, it can still be bridged with urgent and concerted action by all countries and across all sectors.
On the state of the global climate, the report indicates that the average global temperature for 2016-2020 is expected to be the warmest on record, about 1.1 degree Celsius above 1850-1900 (a reference period for temperature change since pre-industrial times) and 0.24 degree Celsius warmer than the global average temperature for 2011-2015.
Impact of COVID-19 on Earth system observations
The report also documents how the COVID-19 pandemic has impeded the ability to monitor changes in climate through the global observing system, which in turn has affected the quality of forecasts and other weather, climate and ocean-related services.
Aircraft-based observations have seen major reductions, manual measurements at weather stations and of rivers have been badly affected and nearly all oceanographic research vessels are in ports, owing to direct or secondary impact of the pandemic.
The impacts on climate change monitoring are long-term, according to the report. They are likely to prevent or restrict measurement campaigns for the mass balance of glaciers or the thickness of permafrost, usually conducted at the end of the thawing period.
The report
The United in Science 2020 report, the second in a series, is coordinated by the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO), with input from the Global Carbon Project, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UK Met Office.
The report brings together the latest climate science related updates from a group of key global partner organizations. It presents the very latest scientific data and findings related to climate change to inform global policy and action.
Greece: compounds overcrowding and COVID-19 challenges in refugee camp
Greece: Devasting fire compounds overcrowding and COVID-19 challenges in refugee camp
Within a short span of time, three separate fires broke out at the Moria Reception and Identification Center (RIC) on the Greek island of Lesbos, according to local fire chief Konstantinos Theofilopoulos, who spoke to State television.
While initial reports suggested there were no fatalities, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that over 12,600 migrants and refugees have been displaced and 80 per cent of the facility – designed to house only around 3,000 – was destroyed.
“This devastating tragedy compounds the already existing challenges and difficult conditions at Moria due to overcrowding and COVID-19”, said IOM chief António Vitorino.
“We are doing everything we can to support the Greek authorities and the affected migrants and refugees, to ensure their immediate care and safety as we work together on longer-term solutions”, he added.
Twin objectives
IOM, UN refugee agency (UNHCR), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the European Union’s Asylum Support Office, are working closely with the Greek Government to organize the relocation of unaccompanied children and other vulnerable asylum seekers to EU Member States with the dual purpose of supporting vulnerable groups, and enhancing solidarity among States, said IOM.
“Solidarity with Greece and the people of Lesbos is needed now more than ever”, Mr. Vitorino stressed.
Meanwhile, UNHCR had immediately deployed staff on the ground and offered assistance to the Greece, amidst particular concern for asylum seekers, especially children, pregnant women, elderly people and other vulnerable populations.
Pursuing a temporary solution
The camp, which lies north-east of the island’s capital of Mytilene, has long been overwhelmed by huge numbers of refugees that have been taken in.
According to news reports, riot police, who were dispatched from Athens to the island, cordoned off roads leading from the camp to prevent fleeing migrants from entering nearby towns, as authorities struggle to find shelter for the thousands left without accommodation. The Government has also declared a four-day state of emergency.
“We have been informed about reports of tensions between people in neighboring villages and asylum seekers who were trying to reach Mytilene’s town”, UNHCR said in a statement, urging “all to exercise restraint”.
The UN agency has asked that all those who were previously staying at the camp, which was under quarantine as some 35 people had tested positive with COVID-19, to “restrict their movements” and stay nearby, while a temporary shelter solution is being sought.
Children in the fore
UNICEF said that it stands “ready to help address the urgent needs of more than 4,000 children, particularly 407 extremely vulnerable unaccompanied minors”.
The UN agency thanked the local authorities and front-line responders who worked overnight to address the crisis, noting that the pandemic is complicating the situation further and underscoring the need to implement a “swift and safe response”.
With its partners, UNICEF has transformed its Tapuat Child and Family Support Hub, which is near the Moria camp, into an emergency shelter to temporarily accommodate the most vulnerable, including those with critical needs, until alternatives are identified.
More than 150 unaccompanied children are now sheltering there.
“Last night’s events serve as a strong reminder of the urgent need for a child-sensitive, humane EU Pact on Migration that respects children’s rights to adequate protection and services across Europe”, said UNICEF.
The cause of the fire has not been determined.
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Cardinal Hollerich: Europe’s identity in flames in Moria camp fire – Vatican News
By Gudrun Sailer & Linda Bordoni
Moria camp was home to some 13,000 people – more than four times its stated capacity. Experts and aid workers have long criticised the cramped and unsanitary living conditions at Moria, which make physical distancing and basic hygiene measures impossible to implement, even at a time in which the first coronavirus cases are being reported.
The cause of the fire is unclear. Thousands of men, women and children are now without accomodation and Greek authorities are struggling to find them shelter.
Pope Francis visited the camp, that is almost burnt to the ground, during a 1-day visit to Lesbos in April 2016. He took the opportunity to express his closeness and solidarity to the refugees and to call for urgently needed EU asylum seeker policy reform.
Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, President of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union told Vatican Radio that Europe’s identity has gone up in flames together with camp and that a common European policy for refugees is long overdue.
Cardinal Hollerich described the fire as “a shame for Europe” because it’s not only the camp that is on fire but the very identity of the old continent.
He pointed out that the people who find themselves stationed in Lesbos came to Europe in search of help, and that we Europeans have abandoned them “in their distress on the small Greek island” with “many words but no deeds.”
“I think Europe should be ashamed because this [fire] is the result of the despair in the heart of people,” he said.
The Cardinal recalled a personal visit to Moria camp together with the Pope’s Almoner, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski. He said on that occasion they had the chance to speak to the people: “we heard this deep despair in their hearts.”
“Darkness,” he continued, “has come into the hearts of these people, and I think the fire is a consequence of that attitude. An attitude that is fuelled by our inaction.”
In order to prevent and avert human and humanitarian disasters such as this, Cardinal Hollerich expressed his belief that what is needed is a common policy on the part of the European Union for refugees and asylum seekers.
Reclaiming our Christian roots
He said he is aware that the German Presidency is working in this respect but that all Europeans need to take responsibility.
“We cannot claim the Christian roots of Europe if we let people down in their despair, he said.
The Cardinal singled out Italy, that has accepted many refugees from Moria in the past few years thanks to the humanitarian corridors set up by the Community of Sant’Egidio in collaboration with Italian authorities.
“If Italy, a country with a lot of problems due to the Covid pandemic, can accept so many people, why can’t the rich countries of Europe not do more to help the refugees?” he asked.
Cardinal Hollerich concluded saying his is an appeal “to the northern countries, the rich countries, to accept more refugees.”
And, he continued, Churches across Europe are also called to react more decisively.
Acknowledging the fact that Church incomes have dropped dramatically due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and asking for support for the Community of Sant Egidio that has done such good work in Lesbos,” he pointed out that “sharing does not mean only to give in times when we are very rich, but sharing means to share even if you have become poor.”
PM Borissov has not been invited to European Parliament’s LIBE committee meeting
The publicly circulated information that Prime Minister Boyko Borissov has been invited to the European Parliament for a debate on the rule of law in Bulgaria is categorically untrue.
Neither the prime minister, nor any member of the cabinet has been invited to attend the meeting of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) of European Parliament on 10 September, the government press service has announced. What is more, the rules at the planned hearing of European Commission Vice-President Věra Jourová on the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism do not allow for the expression of any opinion by the Bulgarian government, the announcement reads.
