The UN’s International Organisation for Migration estimates that more than 28,000 Europe-bound migrants have died in the Mediterranean since 2014.
Pope Francis has arrived in the French port city of Marseille to amplify his call for the Mediterranean to be a place of welcome for migrants, not a cemetery for people who die trying to cross the sea to Europe.
The pope’s position on migration is an increasingly lonely one in Europe, where some countries are emphasising border fences, repatriations and the possibility of a naval blockade to keep a new influx of would-be refugees out. The UN’s International Organisation for Migration estimates that more than 28,000 Europe-bound migrants have died since 2014 while attempting to cross the Mediterranean.
France, for its part, beefed up patrols at its southern border with Italy, a few hours’ drive from Marseille, and increased drone surveillance of the Alps to keep newcomers from crossing over.With a European Parliament election set for next year and France’s far right challenging the centrist government’s policies, French government officials stood firm.
Marseille’s archbishop, Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, who was born in Algeria and moved to France as a child, said such “aggressive” measures were not the answer. But he said “naive” speeches about everyone living together happily ever after were not helpful either. “As a prominent moral and global figure… Pope Francis will use his visit to Marseille to recall the moral imperative underlying the laws and conventions that apply at sea: no one in distress should be left to drown.”
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