Be Compassionate To Migrants-Pope Francis to Europe

Catholic Pontiff, Pope Francis, has given a hint of what he intends to discuss on his two-day visit to France's port city, Marseille.

According to Francis, the focus will be on the need for European nations to be compassionate to the suffering of North Africans and other migrants attempting to reach Europe even in the face of death.

Pope Francis, who gave the indication in the Vatican, Rome, in his Angelus on Sunday, is expected to insist on the causes of migration-from poverty to climate change.

He is expected to call for greater tolerance given the horrors the migrants go through, including internment in brutal camps to being left by traffickers to die in the desert.

The visit is coming on the heels of a spike in migrant arrivals in Italy, a development that has generated a bitter debate over how European countries manage their asylum seekers.

“It represents a challenge that is not easy, as we also see from the news in recent days, but which must be faced together,” Francis said after his Angelus prayer on Sunday in Rome.

“It is essential for the future of all, which will be prosperous only if it is built on fraternity, putting human dignity and real people, especially those most in need, in first place,” he said.

The UN says over 2,300 migrants are on record to have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa, according to the UN.

“The Mediterranean is a cemetery. But it’s not the biggest. the biggest cemetery is in North Africa. 

“It’s terrible. That’s why I’m going to Marseille," Pope Francis said while speaking to newsmen in August