MADRID, Spain.
Motivated by some people in Germany, a network of reflection, action and prayer has been set in motion because of the tragedy occurred on October 3 near the coast of the island of Lampedusa in Southern Italy, where a boat with 500 people on board sank without receiving help on time. 155 people survived. To date, 293 bodies have been recovered.
Autumn in the northern hemisphere urges those fleeing in desperation and they venture into reckless conditions to reach the coast of Europe, open to the sea but closed inward. Lampedusa is just that, an island door to the old continent and sea, from the south.
The news of the tragedy, the heartbreaking images, the narratives of survivors noting the lack of support on the part of some fishing boats, and the fire caused by the captain who set fire to a garment without warning to signal that fuel had spilled in the vessel have been a spur for Europe and for the world. Pope Francis did not hesitate to say that what happened was "a shame.“
A fishing boat came to help but it was too late. According to the testimony of the fishermen, they came across a drama they will never forget: "There were so many women, so many children (...) I never thought we had to close our eyes to dead people. Such a thing had never happened in Lampedusa, so close to the coast.”
About 500 people, adult men, children and women, some of them pregnant, were on the boat. Most of them came from Somalia and Eritrea, two countries in the Horn of Africa, 4,000 miles from Lampedusa. They traveled in overcrowded conditions without food. Deceived in their desperation to find a future, some had paid up to 1,400 euros, and had crossed the desert for another four nights and four days to reach Libya, from where they departed. Despite all this, they believed that there was a place and a future in the cradle of civilization.
However, the sea closed the eyes of many of those dreams, extinguished their lives and swallowed the bodies, which were recovered and buried later without names name or identity. But each one is a story of a life with a family, friends, and feelings that will wait forever.
However, those closed eyes have opened the eyes of many Europeans and world citizens who are convinced that something needs to be done ... that something must change ... This kind of tragedy cannot be repeated.
How much more? …
Within the Teresian Association (TA) in Europe, over the last few days, there was an exchange of emails expressing dismay at what happened and an outcry with the question "how much longer? ... "
Elisabeth Münzebrock, a member of the Teresian Association in Germany, started the chain with a collective message:
"Then the Lord asked Cain, Where is your brother Abel? Cain answered, “I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?" (Genesis 4, 9)
I know well that I write these words from a European country, which has no borders with Africa, from a country where there is well being. Yet I wonder: How much longer? ...
As we watch TV images on what happened in Lampedusa we have to continue asking the question: For how long will these African boats continue sinking - burning – in front of our European frontier?
Where is your brother Abel?
And our answer must be: yes I am my brother's keeper, the guardian of these brothers who have not survived, of others who will follow the same fate, because shameless criminals promise them "paradise" at a thousand miles. And, is hell what awaits them?
Quoi faire? What can we do? Was IST zu tun? Qué podemos hacer? " ¿Che possiamo fare tu e io?"
In my country, in 1989, we were able to pull down the Berlin Wall without a bullet, without the intervention of Russian tanks, with candles in our hands, praying at St. Nicolai in Leipzig ... every Monday ... praying ... and more people joined. The rest is known...
Recently Pope Francis called a Vigil for Peace at St. Peter’s Square in Rome: crowds attended ... and so far the attack announced by the U.S. and its allies has not taken place...
You and I with our friends and acquaintances “are many" ... and we have the power of prayer, as Saint Pedro Poveda told us. The Teresian Association in Europe can, should "raise awareness in many! ...”
The responses of support, solidarity, sharing the outrage and concern were not delayed. Emails were multiplied thanking the initiative, adding themselves to the idea of creating a movement to make people aware to achieve responses to this drama of "people trafficking" illegally and in inhumane conditions, to imagine international mechanisms to help transform the causes of those who have to flee their villages because they cannot live, to welcome those who cross borders as brothers and sisters, not as 'undocumented,’ to feel as neighbors those who need help.
In the messages that were exchanged there was a unanimous agreement to appeal to the "only strength" of the members of the Teresian Association and the people of faith: prayer. So, the initiative is to form a prayer chain that repeats every Sunday at 12, the time of the Angelus, in communion with the Holy Father who, at that time, prays with everyone. (In other continents the time could be adapted).
| In the messages that are exchanged there is a unanimous agreement to appeal to the "only strength" of the members of the Teresian Association and people of faith: prayer. The initiative is to form a prayer chain that repeats every Sunday at 12 noon, the time of the Angelus, in communion with the Holy Father who prays it at that time with everyone. |
Initiative in Rome
Meanwhile members of the Teresian Association in Rome have participated in a Solidarity Vigil with several associations on October 4, in the Piazza del Campidoglio. The press echoed this initiative and showed the willingness of Roman citizens to accept survivors of the tragedy of Lampedusa as well as other immigrants and refugees.
According to the charism, the TA would offer developing an educational project aimed at the people who survived and thus respond to the need to learn Italian and some other skills. At the same time they will help in the education of boys and girls.
The Associations that have gathered have also proposed to join others in order to generate strategies that may have an impact on policy and legislative contexts. They would like to make an urgent demand so that a law may be enacted on asylum seekers that has not been ratified yet by all the Member States of the EU.
The move seeks to have legal instruments and materials to provide refugees and immigrants in such conditions a humane reception that is respectful of their rights, with the participation of local institutions and civil society.
Among other initiatives, people have insisted on changing the quota mechanism for an entry permit to the European Union and on the need to raise funds for international cooperation and humanitarian aid in crisis areas.
They also want to show that the problem of immigrants seeking to enter illegally through the southern borders of Europe is not an issue only of recipient countries, particularly Spain, Portugal and Italy, but of all of Europe.
They propose that Europe assume a shared responsibility regarding the problems of the Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa, and that it may be at the forefront of opening a humanitarian corridor to Syrian refugees and those who come from countries in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel. And to promote coherent policies and measures for effective cooperation, peace, integration and inclusion into other corners of the world where there are conflicts. (More information on the Web of Teresian Istituzione Italy)
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