Migrants wait for assistance outside the Holy Cross Catholic Church next to the United Nations buffer zone in Nicosia, Cyprus on November 24, 2021. NICOSIA, Nov 30 Reuters - Pope Francis visits Cyprus this week to lend his support to a conflict-riven island now on the front line of a new migratory route for people fleeing their countries to Europe.
There is nothing telling about the story of an influx in arrivals in central Nicosia more than the small courtyard outside the Church of the Holy Cross. Each morning, migrants queue for help from a Catholic charity.
Aid workers say the situation is overwhelming. Francis, who has made his defence of migrants and refugees a cornerstone of his papacy, has arranged to have 50 migrants relocated to Italy after his trip this week. He plans to ecumenical prayer with migrants at Holy Cross on December 3 after Mass at an outdoor stadium in Nicosia in the morning.
In a video message, Francis said that he was thinking of those who have been fleeing war and poverty, landing on the shores of the continent and finding not hospitality, but rather hostility and even exploitation in recent years.
They are our brothers and sisters. Cyprus has found itself in a sticky spot due to its complex geopolitics, due to its proximity to the volatile Middle East.
Cyprus has a porous 180 km 116 mile ceasefire line that has been used by people traffickers as a back door into the government-controlled south, separating its ethnic Greek and Turkish Cypriots. This year alone, more than 90 percent of those who came to the south used this route.
There are a number of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees who are in Cyprus right now, said Elizabeth V. Kassinis, executive manager of Caritas Cyprus.
She said the charity, which provides assistance with paperwork and food parcels, has recently been assisting up to 400 people daily compared to 150 -- 200 in the past.
Many are hoping that the pope will bring them better days. The pope can change many things because the pope represents Jesus Christ if you follow God you can't lose anything," said Antoinette Ndjikeu, 50, from Cameroon.
Father Jerzy George Kraj, Latin Patriarchal Vicar and Attache of the Apostolic Nunciature in Nicosia, said the ecumenical prayer with Pope Francis at Holy Cross would take place with representatives of Christian communities in Cyprus.
This is what unites us, we are not only preaching, but we are doing the charity. He said something.
Since a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered a Greek coup, the Holy Cross shows the bizarre nature of Cyprus and its division.
The upper walls of the sandstone church are still pockmarked with bullet holes from 1974, and a United Nations sentry post is on an abandoned building opposite.
Francis will be in no-man's land overnight. The Franciscan monastery next to Holy Cross is located in a buffer zone that runs through the heart of the medieval city where most of the buildings have lain rotting and abandoned for years.
The rooms may be small and modest, but the pope will have everything he needs, he said.
Its rear garden, surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, backs onto the Turkish Cypriot side of Nicosia. A bust at the entrance of the monastery is dedicated to Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005.
Plaque beneath the bust reads, Build Bridges, Not Walls.