Pope Francis calls on global community to help Italy in wake of migrant deaths

By Dominic Smith, Saturday 18 April 2015, The Guardian (UK)

The new Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, meeting Pope Francis at the Vatican. Photograph: Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis

Pope Francis has appealed for a greater international effort to help Italy cope with the growing humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean, after a week in which about 450 migrants are believed to have drowned.

Speaking after meeting the new Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, at the Vatican on Saturday, the pontiff said: “It is evident that the proportions of the phenomenon demand much greater involvement. We must not tire in our attempts to solicit a more extensive response at the European and international level.”

Up to 400 migrants fleeing Libya are thought to have drowned at the start of the week when their boat capsized, before another 41 people were feared dead in a similar incident on Thursday.

Italian officials have appealed for greater European assistance to get to grips with the crisis, with foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni stressing that 90% of the rescue effort in recent weeks had fallen on the Italian navy. That message has now been echoed by the Pope.

“I want to express my gratitude for Italy’s undertaking in welcoming the numerous migrants seeking refuge at the risk of their lives,” Francis said.

About 200,000 migrants have arrived in Italy since the start of 2014, with more than 10,000 in the past week alone. This year’s death toll has already reached 909 according to some estimates, compared with about 50 deaths in the same period in 2014, when Italy’s Mare Nostrum rescue mission was still in effect. That programme has since been replaced by Europe’s Triton, a far less ambitious border patrol that monitors incoming vessels within 30 miles of the Italian coast.

“These broken lives compromise the dignity of the international community and we are in danger of losing our humanity,” Mattarella said.