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8 People Die in Fire at Home for the Elderly in Serbia

Emergency personnel work at a damaged nursing home that caught fire, outside Belgrade, Serbia, January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Djordje Kojadinovic
Emergency personnel work at a damaged nursing home that caught fire, outside Belgrade, Serbia, January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Djordje Kojadinovic
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8 People Die in Fire at Home for the Elderly in Serbia

Emergency personnel work at a damaged nursing home that caught fire, outside Belgrade, Serbia, January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Djordje Kojadinovic
Emergency personnel work at a damaged nursing home that caught fire, outside Belgrade, Serbia, January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Djordje Kojadinovic

Eight people died Monday in a fire at a home for the elderly on the outskirts of the Serbian capital, Belgrade, officials said.
Seven others were injured in the blaze that erupted around 3:30 a.m. in Barajevo, a municipality on the southern edge of Belgrade, state RTS television reported.
“Emergency crews reacted swiftly ... but unfortunately the fire had already flared up and eight people lost their lives,” The Associated Press quoted Serbian Social Care Minister Nemanja Starovic as saying.
Police said in a statement that 30 people were in the home when the fire broke out. They said the fire engulfed over a third of the care facility, which is located in a house in a rural area.
The suspected cause of the fire was arson, police said.
The state prosecutor's office said an investigation is still underway but that initial indications suggest that one of the residents who died in the fire had started it.
The injured were transferred to two hospitals in Belgrade, RTS said. At least one person was in serious condition, doctors said.
“This is a huge tragedy, but it could have been even worse,” RTS quoted emergency sector officer Luka Causic as saying.

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Pope Francis Calls Trump’s Plans of Mass Deportation of Immigrants a ‘Disgrace’ 

A handout picture provided by the Vatican Media shows Pope Francis leading the Angelus prayer, traditional Sunday's prayer, from the window of his office overlooking Saint Peter's Square, in Vatican City, 19 January 2025. (Vatican Media Handout/EPA)
A handout picture provided by the Vatican Media shows Pope Francis leading the Angelus prayer, traditional Sunday's prayer, from the window of his office overlooking Saint Peter's Square, in Vatican City, 19 January 2025. (Vatican Media Handout/EPA)
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Pope Francis Calls Trump’s Plans of Mass Deportation of Immigrants a ‘Disgrace’ 

A handout picture provided by the Vatican Media shows Pope Francis leading the Angelus prayer, traditional Sunday's prayer, from the window of his office overlooking Saint Peter's Square, in Vatican City, 19 January 2025. (Vatican Media Handout/EPA)
A handout picture provided by the Vatican Media shows Pope Francis leading the Angelus prayer, traditional Sunday's prayer, from the window of his office overlooking Saint Peter's Square, in Vatican City, 19 January 2025. (Vatican Media Handout/EPA)

Pope Francis said Donald Trump’s plans to impose mass deportations of immigrants would be a “disgrace,” as he weighed in on the incoming US president’s pledges nearly a decade after calling him “not Christian” for wanting to build a wall along the US-Mexican border.

History’s first Latin American pope was asked about the Trump administration pledges of deportations during an appearance Sunday night on a popular Italian talk show, Che Tempo Che Fa.

“If true, this will be a disgrace, because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing pay the bill” for the problem, Francis said. “This won’t do! This is not the way to solve things. That’s not how things are resolved.”

Trump, who is being sworn in on Monday, made mass deportations a signature issue of his campaign and has promised a raft of first-day orders to remake immigration policy.

During his first campaign for the presidency, in 2016, Francis was asked about Trump’s plans to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. Speaking after he celebrated Mass along the border, Francis famously said anyone who builds a wall to keep out migrants is “not Christian.”

Many US bishops have firmly opposed Trump’s deportation plan, with the incoming archbishop of Washington DC, Cardinal Robert McElroy, saying such policies were “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.” It was a reference to the Biblical call to “welcome the stranger.”

Another cardinal close to Francis, Chicago Cardinal Blasé Cupich, said the reports of mass deportations targeting the Chicago area “are not only profoundly disturbing but also wound us deeply.”

In a statement delivered from the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City on Sunday, Cupich said governments have the responsibility to protect borders and communities.

“But we also are committed to defending the rights of all people, and protecting their human dignity,” according to the text of his statement.

Francis, who grew up in Argentina in a family of Italian immigrants, has long prioritized the plight of migrants and called for governments to welcome, protect and integrate them, within their means. He has said the dignity and rights of migrants trump any national security concerns.