“Profound consternation” and an appeal to the European Union to give “a proper and just response” to the problem of migration through “a firm and effective policy of cooperation” have been expressed in recent days by the Spanish diocese of Cádiz and Ceuta. In a statement issued by the diocesan secretariat for immigration, the diocese was reacting to the news of five people killed and over a hundred injured on the frontier that separates the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco. The tragedy was caused by the stampede created during an attempt of some 600 migrants to climb over the barriers that separate the enclave. “The life of each human person is sacred declares the diocese, presided over by Bishop Antonio Ceballos Atienza and nothing can justify this tragic loss of human lives. We must all feel ourselves challenged by what is happening in this area. The migratory pressure of citizens arriving from various African countries in these frontier areas is only a symptom of the great problems of injustice, inequality, poverty and disease present in these African countries”. Of course, points out the diocese, “migration is not an adequate means to respond to these grave problems, which require instead the commitment of democratic societies in the migrants’ countries of origin and a firm and effective policy of cooperation by the West and the countries of the European Union. However we understand the motives that force many citizens into the exodus of emigration to improve their own situation and that of their own family. The European Union says the diocese of Cadiz ought to take account of these situations and give a proper and just response in collaboration with the countries of origin”. The diocese of Cádiz and Ceuta re-affirms its willingness to “co-operate and commit itself to the service of the construction of a brotherly and just society in which immigrants can be fully integrated”.
