The Sant’Egdio Community welcomed a group of Syrian refugees from Homs to Italy on March 27, 2018, Vatican News reported.
The group was able to come to Italy because of the Humanitarian Corridor project, reached by faith-based groups (including Sant’Egdio) and the Italian government. The project allows refugees to obtain visas to Italy and to avoid hazardous sea travel.
Pope Francis cited the benefits of the “humanitarian corridor” project during his March 11, 2018, visit to the Sant’Egdio Community in Rome.
To address the waves of landings of immigrants and refugees from Africa or from the Middle East on the Italian coasts, in 2015 the Community began to establish “humanitarian corridors” to make possible access in Italy of refugees and those requesting asylum in conditions of legality and security. After Italy, others corridors were opened to France and Belgium.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Sant’Egdio, ZENIT Interviewed Marco Impagliazzo, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Perugia, President of the Community, who reacted to the concerns of migrants expressed by Pope Francis:
“I must say that to listen to the Pope, who speaks of migrants, always strikes me so much, because I see two sources in his words. One is the Gospel, from which the Pope draws strength — I’m thinking of the account of the Last Judgment, Matthew 25, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” — but I think of the whole Bible, where the foreigner is always under God’s protection. Then there is the Pope’s personal history, connected to Argentina, which became a great country, precisely because of the mixture of many peoples.”
