Pope Francis has called for much broader involvement from European nations to combat the loss of lives of African refugees crossing the Mediterranean. In the latest incident, hundreds are feared dead after a boat carrying an estimated 700 people capsized off the Italian island of Lampedusa. Nearly 200,000 people have been rescued at sea by Read more
Pope Francis has urged governments to help economic migrants travel to wealthy counties, to defeat the scourge of human trafficking. In a letter to a meeting of the International Labour Conference, the Pope wrote that mass migration is a “grave issue”. Pope Francis called for a “concerted effort . . . to encourage governments to Read more
The recent drowning of hundreds of illegal migrants off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa has caused a stir, as spectacles tend to. But, really, this is no more than a freak occurrence. Like mass shootings in America or child abductions by strangers, it is a statistically insignificant event attached to an emotive story. Freak Read more
As I watched, read and heard untold stories about the birth of a new member of the British royal family, who becomes the third in line to the throne, it was somewhat disappointing that the news overshadowed so markedly the news of Pope Francis’s arrival in Brazil for the start of World Youth Day festivities Read more
It was a shipwreck of African migrants off the coast of Lampedusa, a small island in the Mediterranean, that spurred Pope Francis into action. In the past 18 months more than 500 people have died, or gone missing at sea, trying to escape Africa. The world barely noticed. Standing on Lampedusa on Monday, Francis prayed Read more
In the first pastoral trip of his pontificate, Pope Francis travelled to a refugee centre in southern Italy and issued a heartfelt appeal against the “globalisation of indifference” towards migrants. The Pope said he decided to visit Lampedusa, a small island with a population of 6000 and just 70 miles from Tunisia, after seeing newspaper Read more
“Deeply touched” by the recent sinking of a boat carrying migrants from Africa, Pope Francis will visit the Italian island of Lampedusa — a frequent destination for refugees — on July 8. Officially part of Sicilian territory, the isolated island of 5000 inhabitants is less than 115 kilometres from the coast of Tunisia, making it Read more