Pope Francis is again establishing his own ‘humanitarian corridor’ from Greece to Italy. His latest decision is to send a close aide, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, to the Greek island of Lesbos to pick up 33 asylum seekers and bring them back to Rome.
In the latest resettlement of Syrian refugees from Lebanon, through the Humanitarian Corridors project, 113 people arrived in Rome on Wednesday by plane. Thus far, the civil society project has helped bring 1,800 people to Italy.
The Humanitarian Corridors project in Italy has brought a total of 91 refugees to Rome from Lebanon over the span of two days. The new arrivals, who arrived in two separate groups, will be accommodated and integrated in regions throughout the country.
Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte has called for concrete initiatives “such as the setting up of European humanitarian corridors” to enable the European Union to “leave behind emergency management” of migration crises.
The Catholic Community of Sant'Egidio in Rome is promoting an initiative thanks to which 150 volunteers, together with a group of cultural mediators, will take turns to spend the summer with refugees on the Greek islands of Lesvos and Samos. The initiative runs through August 31.
The chairman of the Lower House's constitutional affairs committee said the Italian government has been working for months "to make a humanitarian corridor to save 50,000 people from the modern-day concentration camps in Libya."
Between Wednesday and Thursday, some 77 migrants and refugees arrived in Rome through humanitarian corridors. Since February 2016, about 2,100 refugees have arrived in Italy - over 1,600 from Lebanon and 500 from Ethiopia - and about 500 in France, Belgium, and Andorra thanks to the humanitarian initiative.
About 600 Italian families have in the past six months expressed their willingness to host a refugee as part of the Refugees Welcome Italia project.
Among the refugees who arrived at Rome airport from Lebanon were several children. This latest flight brings the total number of refugees welcomed through humanitarian corridors to more than 2,500.
Pope Francis has called for the installation of humanitarian corridors for refugees and migrants trapped in Libyan detention centers during his traditional post-Easter prayer Regina Coeli in Rome. While international organizations try to evacuate migrants from the affected areas in Tripoli, there are reports of migrants being forced to participate in the fighting.
Fifty-four Syrian refugees arrived on March 28 at Rome's Fiumicino airport from Lebanon, through humanitarian corridors sponsored by the Sant'Egidio Community, the Federation of Evangelical Churches in Italy, and the Waldensian Round Table, in accord with the Italian Interior Ministry and Foreign Ministry.
Two Syrian-Palestinian brothers will be urgently transferred to Italy from Lebanon through a humanitarian corridor. The younger of the two will undergo a marrow transplant and his brother will be the donor.