Pope takes 50 immigrants in Cyprus back to Rome

• Migration Pope Francis arrives in Cyprus to get closer to the migration drama

Twice a pope has been to Cyprus.

The first was

, in June 2010. At that time, in the two main communities that inhabit the island, the Greek and the Turkish Cypriot, they were working with enthusiasm to heal the wounds of the war in the short or medium term.

Then, in 2017, would come the resounding failure of the Crans-Montana reunification negotiations and, more recently, Turkey would consider that route for dead by proclaiming its desire to establish two states in Cyprus.

Therefore, although the defense of immigrants and interdenominational dialogue guide the steps of Francis during his 35th trip, this time through Cyprus and Greece, the Holy Father has not overlooked this Friday one of the evils that plagues this corner of the Mediterranean Eastern and European.

, the Pope hoped that Cyprus, "marked by a painful division", would become "by the grace of God in the workshop of brotherhood."

The place where the Supreme Pontiff was at that time, the Church of the Holy Cross, is located precisely on the so-called Green Line, the demilitarized zone that the UN began to extend in 1964 to avoid the intercommunal violence that devoured the island. Today there are no more shots around the temple, kept under the Vatican aegis, but the consequences of all that, such as the

buried in the gutters and the resentment among neighbors, still burn.

With these reasons,

: "If these two things can happen, the dream can be translated into a daily journey, made up of concrete steps from the conflict to communion, from the I hate love. A patient journey that takes us day by day to the land that God has prepared for us. The land where, if people ask 'Who are you?', you can easily answer: 'I am your brother'. 'I am your sister, '"he added.

But the Pope does not live by words alone. Emulating a gesture reminiscent of the one he made in 2016 on the Greek island of Lesbos,

. Among them, according to the

media

, there are two Cameroonian students trapped in the Green Zone, since neither Turks nor Greek Cypriots wanted to take care of them at the time. The Cypriot Ministry of the Interior thanked the Holy Father for the action.

This Friday was the second day of the Pope's visit to Nicosia, the city that houses the last wall in Europe. And despite his insistence that "the only word in the signal for peace is dialogue", in front of the political leaders of the Cypriot state,

whose political entity only recognizes Ankara. A missed opportunity, Turkish Cypriot leader

had lamented

in a statement.

During the morning of Friday, the Holy Father, who the day before had met with faithful of the Maronite Catholic confession, offered a mass at the GSP stadium in Nicosia.

In the same framework, Francis paid a courtesy visit to His Beatitude Chrysostom II, Orthodox Archbishop of Cyprus.

A commitment to establish ties with another Church that will extend this Saturday in Athens with a visit to the Archbishop of the capital and all of Greece, His Beatitude

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