Latest Mediterranean Migrants Tragedy a Time for Shame, Pope says
Voice of America
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis said on Sunday that "now is the time for shame" after 130 migrants were feared dead in the Mediterranean and a U.N. organization accused states of not responding to distress calls.
Merchant vessels and a charity ship searching the Mediterranean for boats with migrants found 10 bodies floating near a capsized rubber boat in international waters near Libya believed to have had 130 people on board, French humanitarian organization SOS Mediterranee said on Friday. "I confess to you that I am very pained over yet another tragedy in the Mediterranean," Francis said to hundreds of people in St. Peter's Square for his weekly blessing. "They are people. They are human lives who for two entire days begged in vain for help, a help that never arrived. Brothers and sisters, let us all question ourselves over this, yet another tragedy. Now is the time for shame," he said.Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, right, and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, left, leave a podium after marking Independence Day in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024. Demonstrators with Georgian national and EU flags rally during an opposition protest against a foreign influence bill as they mark their country's Independence Day, in the center of in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024.