via Vatican News:

Pope Francis has recalled that visit to Lampedusa every year since then with a special Mass for migrants. Around 250 people attended the Pope’s Mass this year, celebrated at the Altar of the Chair in St Peter’s Basilica. Most of those present were migrants, refugees, and “those who are dedicated to saving their lives”….

“On this sixth anniversary of the visit to Lampedusa, my thoughts go out to those ‘least ones’”, said the Pope, those “who daily cry out to the Lord, asking to be freed from the evils that afflict them”. Pope Francis then gave concrete examples of those he considers the “least ones”: those who are “abandoned and cheated into dying in the desert”; those who are “tortured, abused and violated in detention camps”; or “face the waves of an unforgiving sea”; those who are “left in reception camps too long for them to be called temporary”….

“This is not just about migrants”, affirmed Pope Francis. “Migrants are first of all human persons”, he said, “they are the symbol of all those rejected by today’s globalized society”.