According to the latest report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) the number of persons who fled from wars, persecution and violence in the world reached 65.3 million at the end of 2015: 21.3 million refugees abroad, 3.2 million asylum seekers, and 40.8 million displaced inside their own country. About half of them are children.
“Refugees are people like everyone, who have been deprived by war of their homes, their jobs, their parents and their friends. Their stories and their faces call on us to renew our commitment for building peace through justice. For this reason we want to stand together with them: to meet them, to welcome them, to listen to them, to become with them builders of peace, according to God’s will”, Pope Francis said yesterday after the Sunday Angelus prayer.
Meeting, welcoming and offering opportunities to refugees is what in the name of Don Bosco many people do in the world. They do it in situations of emergency, as it happened in the past in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast and in the Central African Republic, when the Salesians opened the doors of their houses to host thousands and thousands of desperate fleeing people.
They do it in Syria, among bombs and mortar shells; and they do it in neighbouring Lebanon, where the majority of Syrian refugees look for shelter; they do it in Turkey, where for the past 20 years they have been offering education to refugees of all the Middle East; and in Kenya, in the refugee mega-camp of Kakuma; they do it in a widespread form in Italy, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Germany, Canada… and in many other countries, where the communities host families and tens of refugees, looking after their social and working integration.
They do it all over the world, remembering the words of Jesus: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Mt 25:35).
