On Sunday, Pope Francis expressed his condolences over the death of a large number of migrants in the Mediterranean, calling for an end to the “sinking of civilization”.

It came in his flexible speech five years after he first visited the Greek island, the symbol of this settlement, in a refugee camp in Lesbos.

On the second day of his voyage to Greece, marked by a quick visit to Lesbos, the pope said: “We do not quickly escape the images of their tiny bodies lying lifeless on the shores,” and the Mediterranean “tombs become graveyards without memorial stones. He said:” Many. Was the cradle of civilization and now appears to be the mirror of death. ” We will not allow. Do not turn this ocean of memory into an ocean of oblivion. Please stop the extinction of this civilization.

On the other hand, the Pope condemned the exploitation of refugees in the political campaign, describing the state of global indifference to their plight as a “civil decline”. “It is easy to provoke public opinion by spreading fear about others,” he said, adding that those who reject immigrants “refuse to talk with the same enthusiasm about the exploitation of the poor, wars and the arms industry.” “Apart from the far-reaching causes that need to be attacked, they are not only the poor carrying the consequences, but are also being used in the political campaign,” he added. Pope Benedict XVI said it was “sad” to hear that some European leaders wanted to use collective funds to build a wall and erect barricades to prevent immigrants. “We are the age of walls and barricades,” he added.

Instead of going straight to the stage as planned, Pope Francis walked around the Mavrooni camp, home to about 2,300 people, and stopped to greet dozens of refugees. Pope went to Lesbos in 2016 and took 12 Syrian refugees with him to Italy. He returned to the island for a quick visit as part of a five-day tour of Cyprus and Greece to meet refugees in the Mavrooni camp. The pope expressed his regret that “nothing has changed regarding the issue of immigration” since his previous visit five years ago. (Agencies)