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Grandi (UNCHR) on migrants at 'Peace with No Borders': "Let’s stop talking about closed ports: let us give an answer to the humanitarian crisis and European’s anxieties"
September 15 2019
Immigration#peaceispossible«The relative ease with which the last disembarkment of migrants in Italy was allowed, gives me hope. Perhaps public debate will now be able to stop being distracted from details, to start concentrating on the real problems.» Filippo Grandi, High Commissionar for Refugees at the UN, did not mention the refugees that were disembarked from the ship Ocean Viking in Lampedusa directly, but the reference is unmistakable. Grandi expressed this in his speech at the inaugural assembly of the interreligious convention 'Peace with No Borders' in Madrid, organised by the Archdiocese of the Spanish capital and the Community of Sant'Egidio. The High Commissionar at the UNHCR asked the religious and political leaders to remember the 71 million displaced persons, «who represent - he affirmed - a test, a barometer for our society.» For this reason «it is necessary - according to Grandi - to focus on the cooperation necessary for the solution of global problems that impel people to migrate, to respond to the fear of Europeans, to maintain our values through concrete initiatives of solidarity, such as the humanitarian corridors of Sant’Egidio.»