Tarik Emmaus is a route of contemplation, of letting us soak in the journey that migrants make to reach Europe.

We traveled the opposite route that migrants take from Almeria, the place of reception, to Nador, one of the places of departure.

The feeling after this week is one of deep gratitude. On the one hand, although it is a contemplative experience, it is also an experience of encounter and community living. Gratitude also for so many people who share with us their reality, for being witnesses of the different views: suffering, joyful, welcoming and at the same time hopeful, for building a better life in Europe for them and their families.

We recognize in this reality the loving gaze of God, who accompanies all injustice. We are impressed by the faith with which they live and feel compelled to continue fighting for a better life for themselves and their families.

We now feel called to transmit all that we have experienced in order to try to bring to our communities or places of origin a more just vision of the migrant world, less xenophobic, more hospitable and compassionate. The inalienable dignity of every human person goes beyond origin, color or religion. All human beings are born on this earth with the same dignity. Nothing can be put before or used to justify the privileges of some over the rights of all. “God has given the earth to the whole human race to sustain all its inhabitants, excluding none and privileging none.” John Paul II.

Paloma Aguilera, Marisa Vicente Aparicio, Yolanda Olaizola and Lucía Andrada

Participants of the Tarik Route Emmaus experience 23-30 July 2023