Presbyterian Support South Canterbury Refugee Settlement manager Fiona Jackson said, from August, about 70 refugees were expected to settle in the district.

She said Timaru had settled refugees under New Zealand's Refugee quota programme since June 2020, but there had been restrictions due to the global impacts of Covid-19.

Instead of the planned one or two families every five or six weeks, in the 2020/2021 year from June to July there have been just three new families settled. Read more

He also asked for the safe return of the millions of people displaced by years of fighting, information for the families of displaced persons as to their location and conditions, the humane treatment of political prisoners and the resumption of negotiations to seek a political solution to the conflict.

Dozens of schools, rescue centers and hospitals have been destroyed in aerial bombings, with more than 500 civilians believed to have been killed so far.

Cardinal Peter Turkson who heads the Vatican's department for Promoting Integral Human Development, accompanied by Italian Cardinal Mario Zenari, the pope's ambassador in Syria, delivered the letter to Assad on Monday.

The Holy See's Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, says the letter was a humanitarian gesture urging Assad to take steps towards reconciliation.

"What is happening is intolerable and inhuman," he said.

"The Holy Father asks the President to do everything possible to put an end to this humanitarian catastrophe, in order to protect the defenceless population, especially those who are most vulnerable."

Syrian state news agency SANA says Assad had told Turkson it was important to put pressure on countries supporting terrorists, a term Damascus uses to describe the rebels seeking his downfall.

Syria's war, now in its ninth year, grew out of popular protests against Assad, devastating many towns and cities. An estimated half a million people have died in the fighting.

More than 5.6 million Syrian refugees have fled to Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt and 6.6 million have been displaced within its borders.

Francis has made the situation in Syria a top political and diplomatic priority since his election in March 2013.

Source

• CruxNow
• The Tablet
• Reuters
• Crux
• Image: The Times

The local community objected to his decision to host the family.

Father Paulo Cortezi, who is returning to Italy, said he is now a refugee himself.

"I am leaving Bulgaria with my head up, proud, innocent.

"I sought to protect the innocent, decent, educated, honest, kind, humble and scared Syrians. This is not politics … I did not succeed, we did not succeed.

"God forgive me," he added.

A group of Bulgarians from a civil society pressure group called on head of state President Roumen Radev to support Cortezi.

They asked Radev to "condemn manifestations of Nazism and xenophobia and to use all the power given to him by the constitution to counter illegal actions by mayors and municipal councillors across the country".

Although the Bulgarian Catholic Church supports Cortezi, the country's far larger Orthodox community is not encouraging.

Source

• Eurasia Review
• The Sofia Globe
• Image: You Tube

Welby and the British Home Office took the initiative in an attempt to encourage members of the public, community groups, faith groups, charities and businesses to sponsor refugee families resettling in the UK.

The full community sponsorship scheme is intended to help the government fulfil its commitment to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees in the UK before 2020.

About 1,800 refugees have been resettled so far, less than 10% of the total.

Over the past year there have been numerous ad hoc and sometimes chaotic efforts by community groups and members of the public to provide aid to refugees waiting to come to the UK.

Donations of food, clothing, books and household goods, plus offers of accommodation in spare rooms, have overwhelmed social action groups.

Launching the Syrian refugee scheme at Lambeth Palace, the home secretary, Amber Rudd, said: "The response of the British public to the refugee crisis has been one of overwhelming generosity and many have been moved to make kind offers of assistance."

She said the sponsorship scheme was "a groundbreaking development for resettlement in the UK and I wholeheartedly encourage organisations that can help to offer their support".

Source

• The Guardian
• Image: Wazobians.com

Ramy Alshakarji was still coming to terms with the idea that at last he was safe - he was leaving Lesbos after all, one of 11 refugees rescued by the pope last month - when he found himself at the centre of an improbable security crisis.

Ramy must have thought he had a broad and visceral understanding of the meaning of security after five years in Syria during which he and his family had been "ready to die at any moment, constantly moving because there was constant bombardment".

But at the airport, as he and his wife and their three children passed through the scanners, a panicked flurry broke around them.

"It was our falafel mould," Ramy smiles. They had brought the metal falafel maker with them from their home in Deir ez-Zor.

"But the Greeks wouldn't let us take it on the plane. But we were going on the pope's plane! The Vatican officials told them it had to come … The Greeks said no. There was a conflict between Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, a diplomatic rift between the Greeks and the Italians. All over our falafel mould."

The Vatican prevailed and the mould has become for the family a more consequential object than Ramy's wife, Suhila Ayiad, thought when she packed her bag long ago, and her eyes alighted on the small metal instrument tucked inside a package of scissors, needles, thread, "all the things I'd need".

For a moment she weighed the space the mould occupied in the bag against its future usefulness. "I thought, ‘Well, I'll leave it in there.'"

"To remember," Ramy says. Continue reading

Sources

• The Guardian, from an article by Paula Cocozza, a feature writer for the Guardian.
• Image: The Guardian

Three refugee families, including six children, boarded the Pope's plane for Rome at the end of his short visit on April 16.

A Vatican spokesman said: "The Pope has desired to make a gesture of welcome regarding refugees."

The three Muslim families had arrived on Lesbos before the new European Union deal with Turkey was implemented on March 20.

It is understood that paperwork for the 12 people to go to Rome was arranged in advance.

On his flight back from Lesbos, the Pope said the decision to bring the families to Rome was the fruit of an inspiration one of his collaborators had a week ago.

Two Christian families originally had been on the Vatican's list, too, he said, but their papers were not ready in time.

Two of the families which went to Rome are from Damascus, while the third is from the ISIS stronghold of Deir el-Zour in the north of the country.

Their homes had been bombed.

The Vatican will take responsibility for supporting the families.

But the Catholic Sant'Egidio community will take care of getting them settled initially.

On Lesbos, the Pope urged the European Union to change its policy towards the migrants.

He said: '"We hope that the world will heed these scenes of tragic and indeed desperate need, and respond in a way worthy of our common humanity."

While on Lesbos, Pope Francis blasted people smugglers and arms traffickers whom he blamed for worsening the current refugee crisis in Europe.

The Pontiff was greeted at the camp by a large group of children, some of whom arrived in Greece without their parents.

Addressing the refugees, he said: "You are not alone. Do not lose hope."

Children offered Francis drawings and the Pope praised one little girl for her artwork, saying "Bravo. Bravo."

Then as he handed it off to his staff he stressed: "Don't fold it. I want it on my desk."

Pope Francis was accompanied on his visit by Patriarch Bartholomew I and Archbishop of Athens Ieronymos II.

Sources

• Daily Mail
• The Guardian
• Aleteia
• Catholic Herald
• Full text of Pope's interview on flight from Lesbos
• Image: ABC

"But an incident in 2013 changed my perspective on the Syrian crisis, and I now find it morally indefensible not to help where I can." Read about Smalley's experience in New Zealand Herald

The New Zealand government's response to the unprecedented humanitarian crisis is gratifying.

But does that absolve us of individual our individual responsibility?

Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand is accepting donations to the Peace in the Middle East Fund to assist with the ongoing humanitarian response.

As with all their work and that of the entire global Caritas network, Caritas New Zealand Aotearoa provides assistance in the form of humanitarian aid, development programmes and advocacy against poverty and injustice regardless of religion.

"We have worked to help Syrian refugees since the beginning of the conflict, and Caritas is committed to continuing to provide essential supplies to those in need throughout the region," says Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand director Julianne Hickey.

There are 1.2 million Syrian refugees living in neighbouring Lebanon.

Caritas' work in Lebanon is part of a regional response to the crisis that includes supplying food, water and shelter to desperate refugees families in Iraq, Turkey and Jordan.

Jordan has one of the largest refugee populations in the world.

Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand will look to provide food, shelter, medical care, counselling, education and other aid to the thousands of displaced people.

Echoing the words of Cardinal John Dew in a recent interview, Hickey says: "The growing number of refugees around the world has created a crisis which no country or organisation committed to human rights can ignore."

• Since 2011, civil war in Syria has left 12.2 million people in need of assistance and created one of the largest refugee crises in history.
• Eight million people have been forced from their homes inside Syria.
• More than 4 million are either living in neighbouring countries, or making the perilous journey to Europe in search of a new life.
• This is equivalent to the entire New Zealand population being displaced by war and looking for a new home.

Kiwi photographers document reality of refugee crisis

Donations Website: www.caritas.org.nz

Source

• Supplied: Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand
• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: dailymail.co.uk

Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand is the New Zealand Catholic Bishops' agency for justice, peace and development, and incorporates Mahitahi - Catholic Overseas Volunteers. We are working for a world free of poverty and injustice through community development, advocacy, education, and emergency relief.

Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand is a member of Caritas Internationalis, a confederation of 165 Catholic aid, development and social justice agencies active in over 200 countries and territories.

The pontiff visited asylum seekers in Rome on Tuesday, underlining his papacy's emphasis on the poor and the plight of immigrants.

Turning convents and monasteries that have emptied due to a drop in vocations into hotels has raised funds for the Church, but also attracted criticism.

"Empty convents and monasteries should not be turned into hotels by the Church to earn money ... (the buildings) are not ours, they are for the flesh of Christ, which is what the refugees are," Francis said during a private audience in the Jesuit Astalli Centre for refugees.

The pope called on wealthy societies and the Catholic Church to do more to help and defend the rights of the needy.

"Charity that leaves a poor person just the way he is does not suffice," he said. "True mercy, that which God gives us and teaches us, asks for justice, asks that the poor person find the way to be poor no more."

Francis said looking after the poor should not be the work of only "specialists," but engaged in by all members of the Church. It should also be part of the training of priests.

"The word solidarity frightens people in the developed world," he said.

Sources

Reuters

Catholic News Service

Time

Image: AP/Time