By Stefania Fumo
TAORMINA, Italy, May 27 (Xinhua) -- Development charity organization Oxfam staged an action Saturday to focus the attention of the Group of Seven (G7) leaders on the plight of migrants and refugees.
Volunteers, wearing oversized papier-mache masks, stood behind a cardboard "brick wall" on the beach. In front of them, signs stuck in the sand read "Border Control", "No Trespassing" and "Keep Out".
The action took place below the Sicilian town of Taormina, where G7 leaders are holding talks on the second and final day of the Group's 43rd annual summit.
"This stunt is trying to show the cruel fact that the G7 (members) are building barriers rather than safe routes for desperate refugees and migrants," Oxfam Senior Policy Adviser Edmund Cairns told Xinhua.
"There is a real scandal brewing at the G7," he went on.
The scandal, he said, would be if "G7 leaders come right here to Sicily, on the doorstep of the sea where 1,400 people have drowned this year alone between Libya and Sicily (while) trying to reach safety, and they fly home this evening without (a) credible plan to end this vast human tragedy."
The G7 nations host just 9 percent of the world's refugees while developing countries have taken in 86 percent of them, Cairns said.
On a global level, war has driven 65 million people from their homes, he said, citing the United Nations.
The watchword for refugee and migrant rights campaigns by Oxfam and others is "safe and legal passage".
The destitute who have been driven from their homes otherwise entrust themselves to human traffickers who extort huge sums of money and in many cases, abuse them, before putting them on boats on the Mediterranean.
