VATICAN CITY: Addressing the International Forum on Migration and Peace here on Tuesday, Pope Francis urged people to help the migrants coming to their countries.
“As record numbers of people flee conflict, persecution and poverty, governments, citizens and the Church have a moral obligation to safeguard migrants and show solidarity with them,” the Pope said.
“Contemporary migration movements represent the largest movement of individuals, if not of peoples, in history,” he told the participants.
“Unfortunately, in the majority of cases this movement is forced, caused by conflict, natural disasters, persecution, climate change, violence, extreme poverty and inhumane living conditions.”
“The complex phenomenon poses a mounting challenge to host societies, which have a moral duty to welcome, protect, promote the “integral human development” of migrants, exiles and refugees and integrate them.”
“Defending their inalienable rights, ensuring their fundamental freedoms and respecting their dignity are duties from which no one can be exempted,” he added.
The Pope’s wide-ranging address also urged “decent and appropriate shelter” for refugees and migrants, programmes to reunify families and give “the right to find in one’s own homeland the conditions necessary for living a dignified life”.
