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SAN CRISTOBAL DE LA LAGUNA, Spain — <\/span>SAN CRISTOBAL DE LA LAGUNA, Spain (AP) \u2014 Pope Leo XIV<\/a> warned people smugglers on Friday that they will face God’s wrath for exploiting the desperation of migrants, demanding they stop and repent during his final day in this epicenter of the African migration route to Europe.<\/p>\n \u201cBreak those chains and free those you hold in bondage,\u201d Leo said in a message to human traffickers during a meeting with humanitarian aid organizations in the Canary Islands that help migrants.<\/p>\n Leo wrapped up his weeklong trip to Spain<\/a> in the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago closer to Africa than the Iberian Peninsula and a key point of entry for migrants who make the perilous Atlantic crossing from West Africa.<\/p>\n He is fulfilling a wish of Pope Francis to visit the islands to commemorate the thousands of lives lost at sea. He is also drawing attention to the Catholic Church\u2019s biblically-mandated mantra to \u201cwelcome the stranger\u201d amid anti-migrant sentiment in Europe and the Trump administration’s mass deportation program in his native United States.<\/p>\n During an encounter with aid groups in Tenerife, Leo implored receiving communities to integrate people fleeing war, poverty and climate change and spare them from the \u201csilent shipwreck\u201d of abandonment when they are left on the streets with nothing after surviving perilous crossings.<\/p>\n \u201cA human conscience, and even more so a Christian conscience, cannot remain indifferent in the face of these graveyards of the sea, to the victims of shipwrecks and the lack of aid,\u201d Leo said. \u201cEvery life lost on these routes is a failure for the human family.\u201d<\/p>\n The Canary Islands have long been a stepping stone <\/a> for migrants trying to reach Europe from West Africa and Morocco.<\/p>\n While people smugglers and human traffickers operate the Atlantic route, there are also many self-organized boats of migrants, including many former fishermen from Senegal who were left without income due to overfishing in recent years.<\/p>\n Migrant arrivals in the Canary Islands peaked in 2024 at nearly 47,000. They have fallen dramatically, with over 3,000 people landing there in the first five months of 2026. <\/p>\n Because of the vastness of the ocean and scarcity of rescue ships or monitoring, some experts consider the Atlantic route more deadly than the more well-known central Mediterranean smuggling route from Libya and Tunisia to Italy. Since 2020, several West African boats have been found in the Caribbean and Latin America with only dead bodies on board after drifting across the Atlantic, pushed by trade winds and currents.<\/p>\n Leo directed his remarks Friday to the criminal organizations and individual smugglers who organize these \u201cdeath routes\u201d to Europe. These smugglers charge thousands of euros a person and often force their passengers into prostitution or other forms of black market labor by withholding their documents to pay off the debt.<\/p>\n \u201cStop. Repent,\u201d Leo said in his message to traffickers. \u201cFor every life lost, every family deceived, every body subjugated, every woman threatened, every worker exploited, you will have to appear before divine justice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRepent while there is still time, for God\u2019s mercy can reach even the most hardened sinner, but it enters only through the narrow gate of truth, justice and conversion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n With his two-day visit to the Canary Islands, Leo has confirmed himself as the heir of Francis\u2019 migration preaching, which was a priority of Francis’ 12-year pontificate and often caused friction with U.S. and European powers.<\/p>\n History\u2019s first U.S.-born pope has not only echoed Francis\u2019 message and gestures, he has expanded and amplified them during a deeply symbolic visit. Upon arrival on Thursday, Leo threw a bouquet of flowers into the sea from a port nicknamed the \u201cDock of Shame\u201d in 2020, when migrants were forced to live in squalor during a spike in their arrivals.<\/p>\n Leo\u2019s gesture mimicked the one Francis made in 2013 when he visited Lampedusa, Sicily, another flashpoint in Europe\u2019s migration drama, and denounced the \u201cglobalization of indifference\u201d<\/a> that the world showed asylum seekers.<\/p>\n But in a sign Leo is making the papacy his own, the 70-year-old pope has added a new gesture: After a onetime migrant offered his testimony, Leo did the viral \u201c6-7\u201d hand gesture that’s popular with young people as he joked alongside him. That earned the pope cheers and applause from the crowd.<\/p>\n In the Canary Islands and in remarks on the Spanish mainland, Leo has reaffirmed the right of migrants to flee but also to stay home, demanding their countries of origin provide the necessary economic and security conditions. He shamed European countries that turn their back on migrants’ plights, and said every Christian cannot remain indifferent.<\/p>\n On Friday, he noted that for the Catholic Church, the process of integrating migrants into a community can become a chance at spreading the faith, \u201cwithout imposing\u201d it and in respect of the migrants\u2019 own beliefs.<\/p>\n Leo opened the final day of his trip by visiting the Las Ra\u00edces migrant camp and meeting with migrants. Leo drew a round of applause when he went off-script to tell them that he would speak in French and English. <\/p>\n One woman told him of the desperation that drove her to leave her homeland and family, the trauma of the crossings, and her gratitude at finding safety and a new life. The woman, identified as Bousso Diouf, asked for respect and dignity for all migrants.<\/p>\n Next month, on July 4, the American pope will spend U.S. Independence Day on the island of Lampedusa, where Francis in 2013 first denounced the \u201cglobalization of indifference\u201d the world shows migrants. <\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP\u2019s collaboration<\/a> with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n