"In Africa we do not want to take the gold: we want to leave investment and work.
"Many Africans have told me that they do not want to run away from their lands; more can be done about this, it is the most human, most merciful approach.
"The Pope says this clearly," Meloni said at the presentation of Father Antonio Spadaro's book, The Atlas of Francis. Vatican and international politics.
Meloni went on to say that ugly allegations have been hurled her way.
"These are peculiar days, I have been accused of gruesome things, but my conscience is clear: the more people leave the more we risk something going wrong.
"It is not the humane way to deal with it, perhaps it is the easiest, to decide that it is the mafiosi who choose those who come to us, that those who arrive find themselves victims of organised crime, of prostitution," she said.
Meloni said that she was grateful for her position of being a decision maker.
"On foreign policy in the past Italy has had swinging positions: not choosing is more profitable.
"Today, instead, politics can no longer afford it and in the difficulties I thank God for being forced to make choices, with the possibility of giving this nation an industrial and economic policy, an idea for reforms.
"This certainly does not help with consensus," Meloni said.
ANSA
