Refugees In Libya president excited by meeting with Pope Leo XIV

David Yambio, the president and co-founder of Refugees in Libya, is elated by the Pope Leo ‘s meeting with him and his members in the Vatican.

David expressed his excitement in a post on his X handle.

The post is reproduced below unedited:

Among all the authorities and institutions obligated to protect the lives of refugees; from governments to law enforcement; it was the Pope who stood with us.By posing for a photo with our flag and later shaking our hands with eminence emotion and sincerity, he expressed one of the deepest acts of solidarity toward refugees, migrants, stateless people, and all those on the move in Libya.

As I wrote yesterday, these are the people who continue to endure rape, torture, extortion, enslavement, mass detention, and death, horrors that remain funded and legitimized by European policies.

“I know it is not too late for the Italian and European governments to stop their crimes against humanity in Libya. And it is very simple:

Close the detention camps.

Stop the Memorandum.

Free the nearly one million vulnerable persons trapped between dungeons, wretches of the Libyan militias, exile, and the deadly Mediterranean Sea.

And since many have asked, I believe now is the moment to explain the meaning of our logo:

Our emblem shows a person in a small boat on open water, a symbol of both peril and hope. It represents every refugee who has crossed the desert and the sea in search of safety, dignity, and freedom.

The surrounding circle stands for unity, resistance, and self-organization of a community that refuses to disappear or remain silenced despite detention, torture, rape, and death.

The sky and clouds recall the universal right to movement, the idea that the earth and sky belong to everyone.

The phrase “Seeking Asylum is a Human Right” affirms what is too often denied in practice: that migration is not a crime, and no one should be punished for seeking protection.

The color blue reflects both the sea witness to countless tragedies and the horizon of freedom we continue to strive toward.

In fine, this image should be a call to action for Giorgia Meloni, Ursula Von der Leyen, Hans Leijtens and many others to give us an immediate audience instead of their usual media propaganda and racist remarks.