The Vatican on Monday reiterated calls for countries to deal with immigration in respect of international conventions and human dignity.
The president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants, Antonio Maria Veglio, told Vatican Radio that the Church ''cannot keep quiet about the tragedy of emigration, voluntary or forced''.
''While the state must carry out its own duty to guarantee legality, reprimanding criminality and delinquency and managing hundreds of thousands of people in an irregular situation, it must do so with respect for human dignity and international conventions,'' he said.
Veglio called on countries to ''take clear and realisable steps'' to regulate migrant entry and asked them to watch over the jobs market to prevent immigrants from being exploited by employers who pay off the books.
He appealed for a ''positive commitment to promote initiatives for integration and all forms of social, cultural and religious coexistence''.
Meanwhile, a group of Italian and foreign non-governmental organisations on Monday sent a petition to the European Commission and the human rights committees of the Council of Europe and the United Nations, asking them to condemn Italy for ''serious violations'' of human rights brought about by a recent controversial policy to repatriate immigrants rescued in the Mediterranean to Libya.
''The repeated forced repatriations to Libya... are a serious violation of asylum rights and of the fundamental individual rights foreseen by national, European Union and international laws,'' said the group, which includes Catholic charity the Sant'Egidio Community as well as the Federation of Evangelical Churches.
The group called on European and international bodies to ''condemn Italy and ask the authorities of our country not to continue with further repatriations''.
Despite heavy criticism from the United Nations, the Catholic Church and humanitarian organisations, Italy has sent back some 600 would-be migrants since the launch of the policy on May 6 as part of a historic friendship deal with the North African country.
