The Pope has harsh words for countries with asylum centres

The Pope has likened the holding centres for migrants and refugees to “concentration camps”, sparking outrage among Jewish groups.

Pope Francis was talking on Sunday about a trip he made last year to an asylum seekers’ camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.

According to Reuters, the Pope said that many such refugee camps had become similar to concentration camps – used by the Nazis during World War II to execute millions of Jews – because of “the great number of people left there inside them”.

Australia operates two offshore asylum seekers’ centres, on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island and on the island of Nauru. The Manus Island camp is due to close in October, with some migrants set to be relocated to the US. The United Nations has repeatedly criticised Australia’s asylum centres, last October calling the Nauru centre “cramped, humid and life-threatening”, according to the ABC.

But Reuters reported that the American Jewish Committee called the Pope’s decision to compare such camps with the concentration camps of WWII was “regrettable”.

“The conditions in which migrants are currently living in some European countries may well be difficult, and deserve still greater international attention, but concentration camps they certainly are not,” the AJC’s head, David Harris, said in a statement, Reuters reported.

Do you think the Pope’s comparison is fair?