Pope warns people smugglers they face God’s wrath

Pope Leo has warned human traffickers that they will face God’s wrath if they continue to exploit desperate African people trying to reach Europe via Spain’s Canary Islands.

On Friday, his second day in the Canary Islands, the pontiff said that he wanted to directly address those who “take advantage of people’s desperation [or] organise death routes”.

Throughout his weeklong tour of Spain, the American pope has insisted on the inherent dignity and rights of migrants, urging global leaders to welcome and integrate them into society.

“Stop. Repent,” said Pope Leo. “For every life lost, every family deceived … you will have to appear before divine justice.”

“Repent while there is still time,” he said, invoking the Catholic belief that someone who committed evil acts in life can confess their sins and make amends or be sent to hell upon their death.

Leo was visiting the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the western coast of Africa, as the culmination of a three-stop tour of Spain.

The islands are one of the main gateways into Europe for migrants, who risk a deadly journey across the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, often in improvised and overcrowded small craft.

Earlier, the first man from the United States to lead the Roman Catholic Church, warned world leaders that history would condemn those who allowed people fleeing war or poverty to suffer.

Located more than 1,000km (620 miles) from mainland Spain, the Canaries saw migration peak in 2024, when the islands received 46,843 migrants, compared with fewer than 1,000 in 2015, according to official data.

More than 3,000 people died last year trying to reach the islands, according to the NGO Caminando Fronteras.

The pope also visited an interim housing centre in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands, to hear testimonies from migrants. The facility has received some 70,000 people since it opened in 2021.

One woman, Bousso Diouf, told Pope Leo that migrants did not want special privileges but “respect, humanity and the opportunity to live with dignity.”