Welcome, protect, integrate migrants (2)

(ANSA) - Vatican City, May 17 - Pope Francis on Thursday said migrants and refugees should be welcomed, protected and integrated by the international community.
    He said this was one of the "most pressing humanitarian issues" facing the international community.
    The pope was speaking at am audience in which ambassadors from Tanzania, Lesotho, Pakistan, Mongolia, Denmark, Ethiopia and Finland presented their credentials.
    "Among the most pressing of the humanitarian issues facing the international community at present is the need to welcome, protect, promote and integrate all those fleeing from war and hunger, or forced by discrimination, persecution, poverty and environmental degradation to leave their homelands," Francis said.
    "As I had occasion to reiterate in my Message for this year's World Day of Peace, this problem has an intrinsically ethical dimension that transcends national borders and narrow conceptions of security and self-interest. "Notwithstanding the complexity and delicacy of the political and social issues involved, individual nations and the international community are called to contribute as best they can to the work of pacification and reconciliation through decisions and policies marked above all by compassion, foresight and courage."