What’s Christian world doing about refugee crisis?

MAN’S INHUMANITY to man is pictured in the body of a baby boy washed ashore on an island. His family was fleeing from their homeland that has been ravaged by savages. Even if he survived the ocean trip, he and his family—and the many thousand others like them—would still have to face uncertain fate in the strange, uncharted places they are searching for a home. Some countries in Europe refused to let them settle inside their territory, forcing them—children and all—to walk hundreds of miles to find a hospitable refuge.

What is the Christian world doing about this humanitarian crisis? An Egyptian billionaire offered to buy an island for them, but nobody else has offered a solution, not even Pope Francis.

Shouldn’t this be a concern for the United Nations? The root cause is the growth of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which has devastated Syria and killed many of its people, forcing survivors to flee. Shouldn’t the United Nations intervene militarily to crush Isis and require its member-nations to commit to quotas on how many refugees they can accept?

Reports state that the refugees include engineers, doctors and other professionals who could be an asset to nations willing to accept them. But, most of all, isn’t this an occasion for those who profess faith in and love for Jesus Christ to ask themselves: “Who is my brother?”—and to revisit Jesus’ story about the good Samaritan?

—AMADO F. CABAERO SR., amacabsenior1@gmail.com