Prayers said for refugees and asylum seekers

Christians held prayer events in Wales’s four asylum seeker dispersal centres last Thursday to mark Refugee Week.

Refugees and asylum seekers asked God to intervene in their plight and that of their countries in the centres in Swansea, Newport, Cardiff and Wrexham, where asylum seekers are sent to while their claims are processed.

Around 150 people, including British Christians, refugees and asylum seekers from Iran, Tibet, Afghanistan, several African countries and Pakistan, came to the meetings. Prayers for the oppressed were said in several languages, with specific prayers for Iran, the Romanian migrants in Belfast and other issues.

Jim Stewart, National Assembly Liaison Officer for the Evangelical Alliance Wales, organised the events along with local church leaders in the South Wales Churches’ Refugee Network.

“A lot of the asylum seekers coming into the UK are people of faith, and this is hugely valuable for them to cling onto in a strange country,” he said.

“It was great to be able to bring a spiritual dimension to Refugee Week. Some of the stories of the refugees and asylum seekers who attended were heartbreaking and a number of them were traumatised because their friends and relatives are in jail in their home countries because of their faith.

“We really wanted to show solidarity with them and to pray for their situations.”

The South Wales Churches’ Refugee Network is made up of around 25 churches working with asylum seekers and refugees in South Wales, enabling them to information-share and support each other and the people they are serving.

The network was started last September following the “Equipped to Serve” conference on asylum last summer in Cardiff.

Mr Stewart said: “The network is growing as asylum seekers continue to turn up on the doorsteps of churches. This is a new area of work for many churches, and they are able to come to us for advice, support and to share their experiences.”