Papa Francesco Prays for Migrants in Lampedusa

Papa Francesco, Pope Francis, has made his first pastoral visit outside Rome, meeting and praying for migrants on the Italian island of Lampedusa, off the coast of Sicily. He met some of those who had survived the trip and threw a wreath into the water in memory of the many migrants who have died trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. Saying Mass on an altar converted from a migrant boat, the Pope prayed for immigrants and thanked those in Lampedusa who had helped look after them. The ceremony took place on the main sports field, located near the “boat cemetery” that houses the remains of broken migrant ships that have reached Lampedusa’s rocky shores. According to the UNHCR, 8,400 migrants have landed in Italy and Malta in the first six months of this year, almost double the 4,500 who arrived during the first half of 2012. Interviews with survivors indicates that at least 500 people died on the way to Europe in 2012 and 40 deaths have been recorded already in the first half of 2013. Fortress Europe, an Italian NGO that tracks migrant deaths reported by the media, says about 6,450 people died in the Canal of Sicily between 1994 and 2012. Papa Francesco, a pope “dalla fine del mondo "from the end of the Earth”, whose parents immigrated to Argentina from Italy, has a special place in his heart for refugees and labour migrants. As archbishop of Buenos Aires, he denounced the exploitation of migrants as “slavery” and said those who did nothing to help them were complicit by their silence.