Vatican official: Deaths of refugees should prompt more aid

Published: 2006-10-05

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A Vatican official said the deaths of hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers in recent months should set off a "red light of alarm" and prompt more aid by the international community. Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said funding should be increased for such humanitarian programs, particularly at a time when the global budget for weapons expenditures has grown to well over $1 trillion a year. Archbishop Tomasi, the Vatican's representative to Geneva-based U.N. agencies, addressed a meeting of the executive committee of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Oct. 4 in Geneva. Archbishop Tomasi's office released a text of his statement. "The hundreds of victims whose lives have been lost in recent weeks and months in their desperate search for a more secure and decent existence is a red light of alarm that in our globalized world the international community is failing to uphold its goals of solidarity and protection," he said.

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