Prayers for
Peacemakers, 29 November 2017
Please pray
for more than 7,000 refugees stranded on the Greek island of Lesbos, they ask for protection from approaching winter and freedom to
continue their journey. Pray for an Afghani family of a 10-year-old
boy who drowned in the sea and a family that may be torn apart by
deportation. Please hold in your prayers the CPT team, team’s
partner Pikpa, and other people who act in love and solidarity.
The situation on
Lesbos is rather bleak currently. Winter is approaching, and there
are many who only have a summer tent to sleep in. The government is
repressive in the manner that it interacts with the refugees on the
island. There have been instances of arrests and physical use of
force from the side of the police.
The trials of people
accused of being human smugglers, many of whom are refugees who ended
up steering a boat to safety, have started up again, and the Lesvos
team have gotten back into the swing of attending those. The
solidarity camp Pikpa is full, and the other camps on the island are
overflowing. There are more than 7,000 people in the government run
camp of Moria, which was built and can provide for about 2,500. This
is only exacerbated by the laws of the European Union which are not
allowing people to leave Lesbos. We would invite people to check out
the #opentheislands campaign.
While there are many people and
families that could really use prayer right now, I would like to
specifically highlight a couple stories of families in Pikpa. One family from Afghanistan is very new on the island, and during their crossing
one of their children, a 10-year-old son, drowned. The family is
being supported by the other residents of Pikpa and the CPT team, but
it is still very hard for the family.
The second story is of a
family with two young children. The father of this family has been
denied his blue stamp, which would allow him to continue on to the
main land, twice now. This means that he is facing government issued
deportation. This has caused a lot of psychological stress for the
family.
