Lampedusa (Italy) (AFP) – Pope Leo XIV on Saturday visited Italy's Lampedusa island, a major port of call for migrants risking the perilous crossing from Africa, in a stark message to US and EU leaders.
Issued on: 04/07/2026 - 09:46
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The Catholic Church's first US pope, who has clashed with the administration of President Donald Trump over its treatment of migrants, is marking July 4, the United States' 250th anniversary of independence, on a migration frontline.Leo's visit also comes just two weeks after the European Union's approval of new migrant rules allowing much broader detention powers and the creation of deportation centres outside the bloc.He began his visit at a cemetery, pausing in prayer in an area where unidentified migrants are buried in numbered graves.Leo then visited the "Door of Europe", a monument dedicated to migrants, and spoke briefly with a migrant family.The Chicago-born pontiff has made the defence of migrants one of the pillars of his papacy, like his predecessor, Francis, praising those who help the needy and decrying mass deportations in the United States.The 70-year-old was expected to use the half-day trip to the Mediterranean island, a frontier between Africa and Europe, to call for safe and legal pathways for immigration.Leo's presence "sends a clear message at a time when the global political debate on migration is often framed around borders and deterrence rather than protection and shared responsibility", Filippo Ungaro, spokesman for the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, told AFP.'Commitment to welcome'Lampedusa sits just 90 miles (145 kilometres) off the coast of Tunisia, and is famed not just for its white sand beaches, but for showing compassion to thousands of migrants -- and taking in their dead.In 2013, more than 360 people died in the island's worst shipwreck, and dozens more have drowned in the years since.Leo has previously praised the generosity of the islanders, a fishing and tourism community of 6,000.
