San Francisco Frontiers - Pope defends migrants at Mediterranean island frontier

The Catholic Church's first US pope, who has clashed with the administration of President Donald Trump over its treatment of migrants, is marking July 4, the United States' 250th anniversary of independence, on a migration frontline.

Leo's visit also comes just two weeks after the European Union's approval of new migrant rules allowing much broader detention powers and the creation of deportation centres outside the bloc.

He began his visit at a cemetery, pausing in prayer in an area where unidentified migrants are buried in numbered graves.

Leo then visited the "Door of Europe", a monument dedicated to migrants, and spoke briefly with a migrant family.

The Chicago-born pontiff has made the defence of migrants one of the pillars of his papacy, like his predecessor, Francis, praising those who help the needy and decrying mass deportations in the United States.

The 70-year-old was expected to use the half-day trip to the Mediterranean island, a frontier between Africa and Europe, to call for safe and legal pathways for immigration.

Leo's presence "sends a clear message at a time when the global political debate on migration is often framed around borders and deterrence rather than protection and shared responsibility", Filippo Ungaro, spokesman for the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, told AFP.

- 'Commitment to welcome' -

Lampedusa sits just 90 miles (145 kilometres) off the coast of Tunisia, and is famed not just for its white sand beaches, but for showing compassion to thousands of migrants -- and taking in their dead.

In 2013, more than 360 people died in the island's worst shipwreck, and dozens more have drowned in the years since.

Leo has previously praised the generosity of the islanders, a fishing and tourism community of 6,000.

After visiting the cemetery and "Door of Europe", he was due to go to the pier where people rescued at sea by the coastguard or charity ships are brought to safety.

There, he will bless a plaque dedicated to Pope Francis -- who chose Lampedusa for his very first trip following his election in 2013 -- before celebrating mass in a sports field.

Lampedusa "is a place of particular significance... We are here to testify to its commitment to welcome those seeking a better place (to live)," said Vanda Mainardi, 65, who had travelled from northern Italy to see the pope.

The semi-arid island of 20 square kilometres (eight square miles) is the second of Europe's migration hotspots to be visited by Leo, who used a trip to the Canary Islands last month to criticise human traffickers.

He has previously spoken out against measures to clamp down on undocumented migration, and called the US administration's treatment of immigrants "inhuman".

In a speech on Friday to mark America's 250th birthday, Leo called for "moderation" in US public discourse, and spoke of how "successive waves of immigrants" had shaped the future of the country.

- World's deadliest route -

The Central Mediterranean crossing from north Africa is the deadliest migration route in the world, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Around 1,330 people died or went missing while attempting it last year, the IOM says.

That shows the "tremendous need to increase search and rescue efforts", Salvatore Sortino, director of the IOM Coordination Office for the Mediterranean, told AFP.

The route is patrolled by a handful of rescue ships operated by charities that have repeatedly accused EU authorities of not doing enough to help prevent deaths.

More than 14,000 people landed in Italy during the first six months of the year, most of whom set off from Libya, according to the UNHCR.

Nearly 60 percent of them arrived in Lampedusa, it said.

The numbers are far from the peaks reached in 2011, when tens of thousands arrived in just a few months as maritime border controls disintegrated during the Arab Spring revolts.

D.Parker--SFF