Pope condemns indifference to refugees

Pope Francis is due to visit the Sicilian island of Lampedusa to pray with new migrants. Source: AAP

POPE Francis has urged an end to "indifference" to the plight of refugees on a visit to an Italian island where tens of thousands of African and Middle Eastern migrants first reach Europe.

"We ask forgiveness for the indifference towards so many brothers and sisters," Francis said on Monday at a mass near the port on his first trip outside of Rome since his election in March.

Speaking within sight of dozens of the abandoned boats used by the migrants, he paid tribute to the hundreds who drown every year trying to reach Europe and said he had come to Lampedusa "to reawaken consciences".

"The culture of wellbeing makes us think about ourselves, renders us insensitive to the cries of others," he said, urging "brotherly responsibility" and condemning a "globalisation of indifference".

Later on Monday he also referred to Muslim migrants on the start of their Ramadan period of fasting and prayers and said the Catholic Church was close to them "in your search for a more dignified life".

The Pope celebrated mass with a cross and a chalice made from the wood of rickety fishing boats that migrants typically arrive on, mainly from Libya and Tunisia.

The Catholic leader earlier boarded a coast guard boat and cast a wreath of flowers at sea.

Surrounded by fishing boats and yachts, he solemnly made the sign of the cross over the sea in a spot where one of many drownings occurred.

Francis also met with a group of around 50 recent arrivals, many of them young Eritreans, telling them: "We will pray for those who are no longer with us."

One young man told him: "We suffered a lot reaching this calm place but now we have to stay in Italy. We would like other European countries to help us."

Under European Union rules, asylum seekers have to stay in the country they first arrive in and unaccompanied minors are often stuck on Lampedusa for months at a time awaiting relocation.

Just hours before he touched down, the latest boat carrying 166 migrants landed on Lampedusa, joining waves of others who fled northern Africa in the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions that began in 2011.

The Pope also paid tribute to the local population - a fishing community of 6000 - for the assistance and tolerance they had shown to the boat people.

Since 1999, more than 200,000 people have arrived on Lampedusa - making the island one of biggest gateways for undocumented migration into Europe.

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