ROME — Pope Francis while speaking in Marseille on Friday evening launched an appeal to rescue more migrants in the Mediterranean Sea and bring them to Europe despite the record numbers already arriving.
In his speech, the pontiff evoked the tragedy of migrant sea deaths on the Mediterranean to urge governments and NGOs to step up efforts to assist migrants in reaching Europe’s shores.
“I invite you to a moment of silence in memory of these brothers and sisters of ours; let us allow ourselves to be touched by their tragedies,” the pope told the crowd assembled for his address.
“We can no longer witness the tragedies of shipwrecks, due to odious trafficking and the fanaticism of indifference. Indifference becomes fanatical,” he said.
“People who risk drowning when abandoned on the waves must be rescued. It is a duty of humanity, it is a duty of civilization!” he added.
Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023 (Photo by FETHI BELAID/AFP via Getty Images).
According to Italy’s Interior Ministry, 132,867 migrants have arrived in Italy as of September 22, nearly double the total that had arrived by this time in 2022 (69,498) and more than triple the figure from 2021 (43,756).
Total arrivals in Europe (194,611) have already surpassed the annual totals of the last six years, even though migrant sea deaths are the lowest in three years.
In his address Friday, the pope insisted that the migrants that begin the journey across the sea should not be turned back or repatriated but offered safe passage to Europe.
“We cannot resign ourselves to seeing human beings treated as bargaining chips, imprisoned and tortured in an atrocious way – we know, so often, when we send them away, they are destined to be tortured and imprisoned,” he said.
What Francis failed to mention is that an astonishing percentage of African migrants who do arrive in Europe wind up in situations akin to slavery. The United Nations migration agency estimates that some 80 percent of Nigerian women who arrive in Italy are destined for sexual exploitation.
Rescued migrants watch as the Sea-Watch 4 civil sea rescue ship approaches a ferry (R) at sea off the coast of Palermo, Sicily, Italy, on September 02, 2020 (Photo by THOMAS LOHNES/AFP via Getty Images).
Most of these “are brought to Europe by Nigerian crime fraternities which are always looking for new ways of making money.”
The problem has gotten so bad that currently, one out of two street prostitutes in Italy is Nigerian, leading African church leaders to beg their European counterparts to stop encouraging African migration into Europe.
“All the migrants who arrive in Europe are penned up, without work, without dignity. … Is that what the Church wants?” Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah said in a 2019 interview.
“The Church cannot cooperate with this new form of slavery that mass migration has become,” the prelate said. “If the West continues down this disastrous road, there is a great danger that, for a lack of a replacement birth rate, Europe could disappear, invaded by foreigners, as Rome was invaded by the barbarians.”
Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze has similarly begged Europeans to stop encouraging Africans to migrate to Europe, insisting that people are better off in their home countries.
The countries in Europe and America can help best “not by encouraging the young people to come to Europe as if they looked on Europe as heaven – a place where money grows on trees – but to help the countries from which they come,” he said.
Nigerian Cardinal John Onaiyekan, the archbishop of Abuja, has also been critical of efforts to encourage Africans to travel to Europe.
“Authorities should make Nigeria home. Same should be applicable to other African countries,” he said.
Having visited Italy and seen the number of Nigerian prostitutes on the streets of Rome and other cities as a result of mass migration, the cardinal said he was ashamed.
“To tell you bluntly I’m ashamed, I’m ashamed,” he told the BBC. “I’m moving through the streets of Rome, Milan, Naples and I see my daughters on the street on sale.”
“I’m ashamed and I stop and even greet some of them — you can’t even engage them in conversation because they were brought out of the village illiterates. All they learn and all they know on the streets of Italy is what they need for this business — I’m ashamed,” he said.
Undeterred, Pope Francis has exhorted NGOs to continue bringing migrants to Europe.
“I am pleased to see so many of you here who go to sea to save, to save migrants,” he said in Friday’s address. “And many times they prevent you from going, because – it is said – the ship lacks something, lacks this, this other. These are gestures of hatred against the brother, disguised as ‘balance.’”