On board the papal plane (EFE) an oil tanker to the Canary Islands and hopes they can stay in Spain.
Francisco received this Tuesday the photograph taken by Salvamento Marítimo de Canarias in which the three Nigerians were seen in the helm and which became an icon of the suffering of migrants who risk their lives to try to reach Europe.
“That photo touched me,” Francisco told EFE, placing his hand on his heart and, after learning that the Spanish Church has launched its “hospitality corridor” with two of them to welcome migrants in special circumstances of vulnerability, he affirmed that he hopes that “They can stay in Spain.”
The Pope, as usual, greeted one by one the 75 journalists who are traveling with him on this journey that will also touch South Sudan and, when he was flying over the Sahara desert, he asked for a prayer for all the migrants who lose life trying to reach Europe.
“Let us pray for those who cross the desert to reach the Mediterranean and are captured and imprisoned in the (Libyan) camps,” the pope said before remaining silent for a few minutes.
Francisco also explained to journalists that he would have liked to go to Goma, in the eastern part of the DRC, but “the war has broken out there,” he lamented.
In addition, upon receiving a piece of coltan, the mineral extracted from the DRC mines in which many children are exploited, he stated that “it is terrible” what happens in these places.
Francisco will arrive in Kimsasa on Tuesday afternoon and on February 3 he will travel to South Sudan. EFE
