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		</div><p>Pope Francis implored Europe on Saturday to respond to the migrant crisis on its shores &#8220;in a way that is worthy of our common humanity&#8221; &#8211; and then showed the way by taking three Syrian families back to Italy with him.</p>
<p>The 12 Syrian refugees, all of them Muslim, include six children. They met with Francis on the tarmac on the island of Lesbos and boarded the plane bound for Rome.</p>
<p>In a statement, the Vatican said Francis wanted to &#8220;make a gesture of welcome&#8221; to the refugees, who were in camps on the Greek island before the agreement between the EU and Turkey to return migrants came into effect on March 20.</p>
<p>The Vatican &#8211; which is already hosting two refugee families &#8211; will take responsibility for supporting the families. But the Catholic Sant&#8217;Egidio community will take care of getting them settled initially.</p>
<p>The pope made his historic visit to Lesbos alongside the spiritual leader of the world&#8217;s Orthodox Christians and the head of the Church of Greece to highlight the plight of refugees, thank the Greek people who have welcomed them in, and to show a united Christian response to the humanitarian crisis unfolding.</p>
<p>Many refugees fell to their knees and wept at Francis&#8217; feet as he and the two senior Orthodox leaders approached them at the Moria detention centre on Lesbos.</p>
<p>In his remarks to them, Francis urged the refugees to know that they are not alone and shouldn&#8217;t lose hope. He said he wanted to visit them to hear their stories and to bring the world&#8217;s attention to their plight.</p>
<p>&#8220;We hope that the world will heed these scenes of tragic and indeed desperate need, and respond in a way worthy of our common humanity,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>Earlier in the day, the pope tweeted: &#8220;Refugees are not numbers, they are people who have faces, names, stories and need to be treated as such.&#8221;</p>
<p>Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met the pope at the airport, with Francis thanking him for the &#8220;generosity&#8221; shown by the Greek people in welcoming foreigners despite their own economic troubles, the Vatican said.</p>
<p>Mr Tsipras, for his part, said he was proud of Greece&#8217;s response &#8220;at a time when some of our partners &#8211; even in the name of Christian Europe &#8211; were erecting walls and fences to prevent defenceless people from seeking a better life.&#8221;</p>
<p>Then Francis and the two Orthodox leaders travelled to the detention centre to greet some 250 refugees stuck there.</p>
<p>They lunched with eight refugees to hear their stories of fleeing war, conflict and poverty and their hopes for a better life in Europe. Later they prayed together, tossing a floral wreath into the sea in memory of those who didn&#8217;t make the journey.</p>
<p>At the port ceremony Francis thanked Greeks for welcoming in thousands of refugees and for showing solidarity and humanity toward the world&#8217;s most desperate.</p>
<p>He said &#8220;God will repay this generosity and that of other surrounding nations who from the beginning have welcomed with great openness the large number of people forced to migrate.&#8221;</p>
<p>The son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, Francis has made the plight of refugees, the poor and downtrodden the focus of his ministry as pope, denouncing the &#8220;globalization of indifference&#8221; that the world shows the less fortunate.</p>
<p>Hours before Francis arrived, the European border patrol agency Frontex intercepted a dinghy carrying 41 Syrians and Iraqis off the coast of Lesbos. The refugees were detained and brought to shore in the main port of Mytilene.</p>
<p>The Vatican insisted Saturday&#8217;s visit is purely humanitarian and religious in nature, not political or a &#8220;direct&#8221; criticism of the EU plan.</p>
<p>However, the Vatican official in charge of migrants, Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, has said the EU-Turkey plan essentially treats migrants as merchandise that can be traded back and forth and doesn&#8217;t recognize their inherent dignity as human beings.</p>
<p>The March 18 deal stipulates that anyone arriving clandestinely on Greek islands on or after March 20 will be returned to Turkey unless they successfully apply for asylum in Greece.</p>
<p>For every Syrian sent back, the EU will take another Syrian directly from Turkey for resettlement in Europe.</p>
<p>In return, Turkey was granted concessions including billions of euros to deal with the more than 2.7 million Syrian refugees living there, and a speeding up of its stalled accession talks with the EU.</p>
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