‘Dignity has no passport’: Pope makes appeal for migrants in Canary Islands

Pope Leo has appealed to world leaders to treat refugees and migrants more humanely, warning in a visit to Spain’s Canary Islands – one of Europe’s migration hotspots – that history would condemn those who allowed people fleeing war ⁠or poverty to suffer.

In what he called an “appeal to the conscience” of politicians in Europe and the international community on Thursday, the first American pope said that “human dignity has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border”.

“We cannot grow accustomed to counting the dead,” said the pope at Gran Canaria’s Port of Arguineguin, dubbed the “Dock ⁠of Shame” by relief organisations after some 1,000 people were stranded in squalid conditions there in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“May history not accuse us of turning the pain of those who suffer into a common sight along our shores,” he said to thousands gathered near a memorial to migrants lost at sea.

“Sooner or later, it will be known whether we protected life or whether we yielded to indifference.”

Leo arrived in the Canary Islands earlier on Thursday, fulfilling a long-held wish of his predecessor, Francis, who died a year ago without making a planned trip to the islands, one of the main entry points into Europe for people fleeing conflict and poverty.

The stop in the Spanish archipelago off the western coast of Africa is a centrepiece of the pope’s weeklong tour of Spain , in which he has also warned that escalating conflicts have pushed the world into a profound crisis.

Juan Carlos Lorenzo, coordinator of the Spanish Commission for Refugees in the Canary Islands, said that Leo’s visit to the Canaries, where the pope will meet with about 1,000 refugees and migrants on Friday, was a “significant milestone”.