ZAMBIA: Focus on Chiluba's 'open-door' refugee policy

The approach of World Refugee Day has prompted the Catholic Church in Zambia, which hosts the biggest refugee populations in the region, to issue a strong warning against xenophobia. "We are dismayed that politicians and civil servants sometimes produce statements which tend to foster rejecting our fellow Africans. General criminalisation of a social group is an expression of racism and xenophobia completely contrary to the law of God and the tradition of hospitality that the people of Zambia have always honoured," a pastoral letter released by the Catholic Bishops of Zambia said.