Archbishop Fernando Chomali of Concepción, Chile, laments the death of three homeless Venezuelan immigrants who perished in a shipping container. He criticized that “Chile is sick” and proposed a way to cure its serious illness.
“As a human being, as a Chilean grandson of migrants, as a Catholic and the archbishop of Concepción, I feel shame and helplessness for the death of three Venezuelans in a container as they were trying to get some warmth,” the prelate said in a letter sent on 19 July to the director of the El Mercurio newspaper.
“It’s painful to see the indifference to this news, which confirms that society is seriously ill. It’s so schizophrenic that migrants dying in subhuman conditions and advertising that encourages even buying apartments in Miami coexist in the most natural way,” the archbishop wrote.
The prelate lamented that “we have become accustomed to people dying in the street of cold and hunger and, on the other hand, ostentation in all its forms.”
Three undocumented Venezuelans died July 15 in a container they used as a home from carbon monoxide poisoning from a brazier they were using to provide warmth in the low winter temperatures of the southern hemisphere.