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Pope urges Malta not to fear migrants as Europe faces refugee crisis

More than four million people have fled Ukraine since the attacks

Pope Francis reminded Malta of its roots as a "safe harbour" in his first visit to the Mediterranean island nation Saturday, warning it not to succumb to isolation and fear amid migrant crises on multiple fronts.

The 85-year-old pontiff's visit to the archipelago, delayed two years due to the coronavirus pandemic, comes as war in Ukraine has unleashed Europe's worst refugee crisis since World War II, with more than four million fleeing the country.

Invoking "the dark shadows of war" spreading across Eastern Europe and castigating those "provoking and fomenting conflicts", Francis similarly recalled the ongoing influx of migrants from the south who try to cross the Mediterranean to reach the island shores of Malta, given its strategic position south of Sicily and to Africa's north.

"According to its Phoenician etymology, Malta means 'safe harbour'," the pope said in his opening address to Maltese dignitaries, including Prime Minister Robert Abela, at the Grandmaster's Palace, the former seat of the Knights Hospitaller who ruled Malta for centuries.

"Nonetheless, given the growing influx of recent years, fear and insecurity have nurtured a certain discouragement and frustration," Francis said, warning against "adopting an anachronistic isolationism".

With a population of just over a half a million inhabitants, Malta has argued it is unfairly penalised for its geographic position and takes a disproportionate share of migrants arriving by sea from North Africa.

The country has come under fire from charity rescue groups patrolling the Mediterranean, who say Maltese authorities turn a blind eye to migrants in peril in its waters.

But the responsibility for migrants in the Mediterranean, and the fresh crisis out of Ukraine, needed to shared by all countries in Europe, said Francis.

"The growing migration emergency -- here we can think of the refugees from war-torn Ukraine - calls for a broad-based and shared response. Some countries cannot respond to the entire problem, while others remain indifferent onlookers," the pope said.

Addressing the conflict in Ukraine, in what appeared to be a barely veiled reference to Russia's Vladimir Putin, Francis said "some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests, is provoking and fomenting conflicts..."

Before departing the Vatican Saturday for the two-day trip, Francis met Ukrainian refugee families newly arrived in Rome.

Asked by a reporter on the papal plane about a possible trip to Kyiv, the pope said a visit to Ukraine's capital was "on the table".

On Sunday, the pontiff will conduct mass before a crowd of thousands following a visit to the Grotto of Saint Paul, where the apostle is believed to have sought shelter after being shipwrecked on Malta.

Francis will visit migrants living at a centre founded by a Franciscan friar in 1971 in honour of former pope John XXIII that houses migrants from across Africa. It is now preparing to welcome refugees from Ukraine.