Home Office Vigil for refugees lost on perilous journey to Europe

Prayers outside the Home Office

A vigil was held at the Home Office today, Monday 20 January, to commemorate the thousands of refugees who have died trying to reach a place of safety in Europe.

A monthly event, this now enters its fourth year, during which the numbers and routes have fluctuated. For instance, a greater number of West Africans seem now to be taking the more dangerous route from Senegal to the Canaries, rather than through the Sahara and the Mediterranean. 2024 has also seen the greatest number so far to have perished in the English Channel. Whatever the cause, the numbers of desperate people continue to take dangerous routes on foot or by sea and road, to find a safer life, and tragically, a significant proportion thus meet their deaths.

The 26 or so Christians were today joined by a Buddhist who found the list of tragic incidents which were read out very moving. Among them was a baby who starved because its food drifted away, and its mother who died of grief; a man beaten to death at the Polish/Belarus border; 35 people who died when their boat capsized of the coast of Libya, and so on and so on.

It moves us all, and we can do nothing but put it into the hands of a compassionate God, to ask for wisdom and hope that there ARE better solutions.

Fr Dominic Robinson, chair of Westminster Justice and Peace, gave a reflection, and appealed to us to reach out to the 5000 homeless, many of them refugees, currently having to sleep on the streets in London.

All are invited to join the next vigil, on 17th February at 12.30pm.