Rome, March 26, 2019 – In the last two days in the Mediterranean there have been 5 landings and 41 people are missing and, according to the UN, nobody is looking for: neither Libya nor Italy, nor NGOs which are, in fact, prevented from seeking and rescue (SAR) in the sea. No humanitarian ship, therefore, but that it’s not a stop for departures from North Africa.

“As a Church and as individual Christians we cannot fail to denounce the inhuman silence that surrounds the Mediterranean and those who cross it – and unfortunately lose their lives – seeking a future once again in these last days. The “mass distraction” plan we are witnessing is the result of a profound sedation that the EU would like to implement, concentrating its attention, incidentally, on other economic and financial plans, made obvious by the visit and by the signed pacts from the Chinese president Xi Jinping with various countries of the Union,” says Fr. Claudio Gnesotto, President of the Scalabrinian Agency for Development Cooperation.

“Dead and lost in total oblivion! This is the condition of the many people who see themselves forced to migrate and who for too long have been victims “unheard” of policies that travel “above and beyond” their interests and their fundamental rights,” continues P. Gnesotto.

The Scalabrinian Missionaries operating in Europe and Africa reaffirm the need for the EU, the United Nations and all those who belong to civil society, who have been able to help out in the past, to work together for the ordinary opening of safe humanitarian corridors, a reality that the Catholic Church and the Federation of Evangelical Churches in Italy have been arguing for years, and the systematic recovery of sea rescue as required by international law.