How Pope Francis touched a migrant’s heart, saying ‘we’re all the same people’

How Pope Francis touched a migrant’s heart, saying ‘we’re all the same people’
Francezka Abano, 9, holds a picture of her and Pope Francis from 2018, as she poses for a picture with her mother Diane Karla Abano, her sister Sophia, 9, and her brother John Florence, 2, in Rome, Apr. 24, 2025. (Reuters)
Short Url
Updated 25 April 2025
Follow

How Pope Francis touched a migrant’s heart, saying ‘we’re all the same people’

How Pope Francis touched a migrant’s heart, saying ‘we’re all the same people’
  • “In the eyes of Pope Francis, we are not migrants, we’re all the same people,” not Filipino or Indian or Asian, said Abano
  • Francis, himself the son of Italian immigrants in Argentina, placed the plight of migrants and refugees at the heart of his moral agenda

VATICAN CITY: Diane Karla Abano, a Filipino migrant living in Rome, has vivid memories of the day that Pope Francis touched her heart and made her feel at home, kissing her two young daughters during an audience in St. Peter’s Square in May, 2018.
“The moment that I reached out to the pope and saw his smile, I don’t know, all the hurt, all the pain that I felt, it changed into happiness and hope,” Abano said, her voice breaking and tears welling in her eyes as she showed photos of the event.
“In the eyes of Pope Francis, we are not migrants, we’re all the same people,” not Filipino or Indian or Asian, said Abano.
She was back in St. Peter’s Square this week, queuing up with tens of thousands of other mourners to pay her last respects to a man whose brief blessing proved transformative.
Francis, himself the son of Italian immigrants in Argentina, placed the plight of migrants and refugees at the heart of his moral agenda during his 12-year papacy, personally intervening to assist asylum seekers and pushing governments to do much more to help.
He repeatedly spoke out for the poor and marginalized, and criticized countries that shunned migrants.
His first trip outside Rome after he was elected pope in 2013 was to the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa to pay tribute to the thousands of people who had drowned in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe and a better life.
In 2016 he visited the Greek island of Lesbos and brought a dozen Syrian refugees back to Italy with him on his plane. In 2021, he flew to Cyprus and again ensured safe passage for a group of 50 asylum seekers.
Among them was Grace Enjei, who had escaped fighting in her native Cameroon in 2020 and had ended up stranded in the so-called “buffer zone” that divides the island as she sought to reach territory that falls within the European Union.
Just before the trip, Vatican officials told her that the pope had learnt of the plight of those caught in a legal limbo, and had arranged for them to be relocated to Italy.
“We were so happy, like, we were singing the whole night, we were dancing, we were celebrating actually. Something so, so, so good, like it was real good, we were so happy,” said Enjei.
Days after she arrived in Italy, Enjei was unexpectedly invited to celebrate Pope Francis’ birthday.
“He was like ‘these are the people from the buffer zone?’ and we were like, ‘Yes, yes, yes’. He said, ‘Oh, you guys are welcome, I heard about your story, and I was so touched, so I needed to do something’,” Enjei said.

BRIDGES NOT WALLS
The late pope repeatedly urged political leaders to defend migrants, saying their safety should take precedence over national security concerns.
In 2015 he became the first pope to address the US Congress, where he recalled his own migrant background and said it was natural for people to cross borders in search of better opportunities for them and their families.
“Is this not what we want for our own children?” he said. “I say this to you as the son of immigrants, knowing that so many of you are also descended from immigrants.”
In 2016 he publicly clashed with Donald Trump — who was then campaigning for his first term in the White House — over his plans to build a wall between the United States and Mexico to keep out migrants.
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis told reporters. Trump, who will attend the pope’s funeral on Saturday, said at the time that it was “disgraceful” for a religious leader to question a person’s faith.
Francis was critical again as the US president began his second term, telling American bishops in a letter in February that he disagreed with migrant deportations.
The pope faced resistance not just from politicians, but also sometimes from within his own Church with a number of parishes, especially in Eastern Europe, unhappy over his call for religious communities to take in refugees.
But speaking from her new home in Rome, Enjei stressed the positive impact that Francis had on so many people, not just herself.
“It’s not only about me. He has helped so many people, and we thank him for the fight he’s fighting for the migrants. We really appreciate and thank him so much,” she said.


Rare bone-eroding disease ruining lives in Kenya's poorest county

Rare bone-eroding disease ruining lives in Kenya's poorest county
Updated 8 sec ago
Follow

Rare bone-eroding disease ruining lives in Kenya's poorest county

Rare bone-eroding disease ruining lives in Kenya's poorest county

LODWAR, Kenya: Joyce Lokonyi sits on an upturned bucket, fingers weaving palm fronds as the wind pulls her dress to expose the stump of her amputated foot, lost to a little-known disease ravaging Kenya's poorest county.
Mycetoma is a fungal or bacterial infection that enters the body through any open wound, often as tiny as a thorn prick.
Starting as tiny bumps under the skin, it gradually leads to the erosion of tissue, muscles and bone.
The fungal variety is endemic across the so-called "mycetoma belt" -- including Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and northern Kenya -- with funding and research desperately lacking.
Once the disease has reached the bone the only option is amputation.
"I was able to slightly walk, although the disease had eaten all my toes," Lokonyi, 28, told AFP.
She was shunned by the local community, she said.
"They used to say that when you go to someone's home, you will leave traces of the disease where you stand."
She was unable to afford medication despite her husband selling off his goats, and amputation became the only option.
"I accepted because I saw that it was going to kill me," she said, a pair of battered crutches lying on the sand beside her two-year-old daughter.
But she has struggled with the aftermath.
"I have become a good-for-nothing, I can't work, I can't burn charcoal, I can't do anything," she said.
In Kenya's poorest county, Turkana, around 70 percent of the population lives beneath the poverty line, with healthcare limited and hard to reach.
Mycetoma disproportionately affects rural communities of farmers and herders, according to the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative , a global NGO.
It was only recognised as a neglected disease by the World Health Organization in 2016. Ignorance and misdiagnosis remain widespread.
"Doctors are not aware of the disease," Borna Nyaoke-Anoke, DNDi's head of mycetoma research, told AFP.
"If you're used to donkeys, you don't start seeing zebras everywhere."
The scale of the problem is difficult to estimate, but Ekiru Kidalio, director of Lodwar Hospital in Turkana, said they "rarely go a week without finding a case".
He added that the local population, 80 percent of which is illiterate, often turns to traditional medicine.
By the time they come to hospital "the condition is already advanced such that it's not easy to reverse".
Medication is also expensive -- treatment takes up to a year and costs as much as $2,000 -- and comes with dizzying side effects.
Diagnosis and treatment are not free under Kenya's overwhelmed health system, leaving patients at the mercy of foreign donors or seeking sums that are unimaginable for subsistence farmers.
In Lodwar Hospital, lab technician John Ekai bends over his microscope and examines a suspected mycetoma sample.
"Mycetoma is a very neglected disease, no-one is giving it attention," he told AFP.
He has become the go-to man for suspected patients, handling his charges with a mischievous sense of humour that puts them at ease.
Ekai has treated more than 100 mycetoma patients in the past year, but has seen only five recoveries, with many simply vanishing back into Turkana's arid plains.
He worries for those who have disappeared: "The mycetoma will grow and grow and maybe... lead to amputation."
During AFP's visit, he examined young mother Jennifer Ekal, 19, who had lived with the disease since she was 11.
"I was in school but I decided to leave because of my foot," she said, showing her swollen and painful extremity, hidden beneath a red-and-white dishcloth.
Four doses of medication a day appeared to be helping, she said.
But as she gathered up her daughter, three-year-old Bianca, she admitted she was worried about the future.
"I do not want to think about the worst."
 


Pakistan vows retaliation, saying three bases targeted by Indian missiles

 Pakistan vows retaliation, saying three bases targeted by Indian missiles
Updated 8 min 23 sec ago
Follow

Pakistan vows retaliation, saying three bases targeted by Indian missiles

 Pakistan vows retaliation, saying three bases targeted by Indian missiles
  • Army says Nur Khan base, Murid base in Chakwal district and one Shorkot targeted by Indian missiles
  • Reports came after Chaudhry said in sudden statement India fired ballistic missiles that fell in Indian territory

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Military Spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said on Saturday India had attacked multiple bases in Pakistan, vowing retaliation.

In the latest confrontation between the two longstanding enemies that began on Wednesday, India said it hit nine “terrorist infrastructure” sites in Pakistan in retaliation for what it says was a deadly Islamabad-backed attack in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22. Pakistan says it was not involved and denied that any of the sites hit by India were militant bases. It said it shot down five Indian aircraft on Wednesday.

Pakistan’s military said on Friday it shot down 77 drones from India at multiple locations, including the two largest cities of Karachi and Lahore, and the garrison city of Rawalpindi, home to the army’s headquarters.

On Saturday early morning, panic rang out in Pakistan as reports emerged that Pakistan Air Force’s Nur Khan base had been hit. 

The Nur Khan air base in Rawalpindi, where the military has its headquarters, is around 10 kilometers from the capital, Islamabad.

In televised remarks, the military spokesman said three bases, Nur Khan, PAF Base Murid, an operational flying base of the Pakistan Air Force located near the village of Murid in the Chakwal District of Punjab, and one in Shorkot, had been targeted by Indian missiles. 

“Now you just wait for our response,” Chaudhry said.

The reports came after Chaudhry said India fired ballistic missiles that fell in Indian territory, announcing it in a sudden statement on national broadcaster at 1:50 a.m. local time on Saturday (2050 GMT), with no details provided to support the claim.

“I want to give you the shocking news that India fired six ballistic missiles from Adampur. One of the ballistic missiles hit in Adampur, the rest of the five missiles hit in the Indian Punjab area of Amritsar,” the army’s spokesman said in his short video statement.

Amritsar’s district commissioner in a text message between Friday and Saturday said: 

“Don’t panic. Siren is sounding as we are under red alert. Do not panic, as before, keep lights off, move away from windows. We will inform you when ready to resume power supply.”

Around 48 people have been killed since Wednesday’s conflagration, according to casualty estimates on both sides of the border that have not been independently verified. 


Conflict, extreme weather worsening hunger in West and Central Africa, WFP warns

Conflict, extreme weather worsening hunger in West and Central Africa, WFP warns
Updated 28 min 21 sec ago
Follow

Conflict, extreme weather worsening hunger in West and Central Africa, WFP warns

Conflict, extreme weather worsening hunger in West and Central Africa, WFP warns
  • Report flaggs food inflation, made worse by rising fuel costs and recurrent extreme weather in the central Sahel
  • Conflicts have displaced 10 million people in the region, including 8 million internally displaced inside Nigeria and Cameroon

DAKAR, Senegal: Some 52 million people in West and Central Africa will struggle to meet their basic food and nutrition needs in the upcoming lean season, driven by conflict, extreme weather and economic deterioration, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday.
In the lean season — a period between harvests when food supplies are very low and which runs from June to August — nearly three million of those people throughout the region will face emergency levels of hunger, while 2,600 people in Mali could face catastrophic hunger, the United Nations body said, citing a new food security analysis.
The report flagged food inflation, made worse by rising fuel costs in countries including Ghana, Guinea and Ivory Coast, and recurrent extreme weather in the central Sahel, around the Lake Chad Basin and in the Central African Republic.
Conflicts have displaced 10 million people in the region, the WFP said, including eight million internally displaced inside Nigeria and Cameroon.
The report did not include the Democratic Republic of Congo, where fighting has surged in the east this year as Rwandan-backed M23 rebels have staged a major advance.
Some 28 million people face acute hunger there, a record for the central African country, according to a report released in late March by the WFP and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
It said 2.5 million more people had become acutely hungry in Congo since the surge of violence in December.
According to the five-phase classification system used by the WFP, crisis-level hunger (Phase 3) is one step below emergency levels of hunger (Phase 4). Phase 5, the most serious, is classified as catastrophic hunger — or, in some cases, famine.


US to accept white South African refugees while other programs remain paused

US to accept white South African refugees while other programs remain paused
Updated 15 min 25 sec ago
Follow

US to accept white South African refugees while other programs remain paused

US to accept white South African refugees while other programs remain paused

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration will welcome more than two dozen white South Africans to the United States as refugees next week, an unusual move because it has suspended most refugee resettlement operations, officials and documents said Friday.
The first Afrikaner refugees are arriving Monday at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press. They are expected to be greeted by a government delegation, including the deputy secretary of state and officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, whose refugee office has organized their resettlement.
The flight will be the first of several in a “much larger-scale relocation effort,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters.
The Trump administration has taken a number of steps against South Africa, accusing the Black-led government of pursuing anti-white policies at home and an anti-American foreign policy. The South African government denies the allegations and says the US criticism is full of misinformation.
While State Department refugee programs have been suspended — halting arrivals from Afghanistan, Iraq, most of sub-Saharan Africa and other countries in a move being challenged in court — President Donald Trump issued an executive order in February prioritizing the processing of white South Africans claiming racial discrimination.
“What’s happening in South Africa fits the textbook definition of why the refugee program was created,” Miller said. “This is persecution based on a protected characteristic — in this case, race. This is race-based persecution.”
Efforts to get white South Africans to the US
Since Trump’s executive order, the US Embassy in Pretoria has been conducting interviews, “prioritizing consideration for US refugee resettlement of Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination,” the State Department said.
The department said nothing about the imminent arrival of what officials said are believed to be more than two dozen white South Africans from roughly four families who applied for resettlement in the US Their arrival had originally been scheduled for early last week but was delayed for reasons that were not immediately clear.
The HHS Office for Refugee Resettlement was ready to offer them support, including with housing, furniture and other household items, and expenses like groceries, clothing, diapers and more, the document says. “This effort is a stated priority of the Administration.”
HHS didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.
Supporters of the refugee program questioned why the Trump administration was moving so quickly to resettle white South Africans while halting the wider refugee program, which brings people to the US who are displaced by war, natural disaster or persecution and involves significant vetting in a process that often takes years.
“We are concerned that the US Government has chosen to fast-track the admission of Afrikaners, while actively fighting court orders to provide life-saving resettlement to other refugee populations who are in desperate need,” Church World Services president Rick Santos said in a statement. His group has been assisting refugees for more than 70 years.
Letting in white South Africans while keeping out Afghans is “hypocrisy,” said Shawn VanDiver, who heads #AfghanEvac, which helps resettle Afghans who assisted the US during the two-decade war.
“Afghans who served alongside US forces, who taught girls, who fought for democracy, and who now face Taliban reprisals, meet every definition of a refugee,” he said. “Afghans risked their lives for us. That should matter,” he said.
Trump administration has accused South Africa of anti-white policies
The Trump administration alleges the South African government has allowed minority white Afrikaner farmers to be persecuted and attacked, while introducing an expropriation law designed to take away their land.
The South African government has said it was surprised by claims of discrimination against Afrikaners because white people still generally have a much higher standard of living than Black people more than 30 years after the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule.
South Africa is the homeland of close Trump adviser Elon Musk, who has been outspoken in his criticism, and it also holds the rotating presidency of the Group of 20 developed and developing nations.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio notably boycotted a G20 foreign ministers meeting in Johannesburg in March because its agenda centered on diversity, inclusion and climate change. He also expelled South Africa’s ambassador to the US in March for comments that the Trump administration interpreted as accusing the president of promoting white supremacy.
Shortly thereafter, the State Department ended all engagement with the G20 during South Africa’s presidency. The US is due to host G20 meetings in 2026.
What South Africa says about the refugees
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office said in a statement Friday that he had spoken with Trump late last month on issues including US criticism of the country and allegations that Afrikaners are being persecuted. Ramaphosa told Trump that the information the US president had received “was completely false.”
“Therefore, our position is that there are no South African citizens that can be classified as refugees to any part of the world, including the US,” the statement said.
The South African foreign ministry said Deputy Foreign Minister Alvin Botes spoke with US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau on Friday about the refugees. Landau is expected to lead the delegation to welcome the group Monday.
South Africa “expressed concerns” and denied allegations of discrimination against Afrikaners, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“It is most regrettable that it appears that the resettlement of South Africans to the United States under the guise of being ‘refugees’ is entirely politically motivated and designed to question South Africa’s constitutional democracy,” the statement said. It noted that the country has worked to prevent any repeat of the type of persecution and discrimination that happened under apartheid rule.
The foreign ministry said it would not block anyone who wanted to leave as it respected their freedom of movement and choice.
But it said it was seeking information about the “status” of the people leaving South Africa, wanting assurances that they had been properly vetted and did not have outstanding criminal cases.
The foreign ministry added that South Africa was “dedicated to constructive dialogue” with the US.
 


Trump admin ‘looking at’ suspending right to court challenge for detainees

Trump admin ‘looking at’ suspending right to court challenge for detainees
Updated 58 min 57 sec ago
Follow

Trump admin ‘looking at’ suspending right to court challenge for detainees

Trump admin ‘looking at’ suspending right to court challenge for detainees

WASHINGTON: A senior White House official said Friday that President Donald Trump, as part of his sweeping immigration crackdown, is looking at suspending habeas corpus, the right of a person to challenge their detention in court.
“The Constitution is clear, and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters.
“So it’s an option we’re actively looking at,” Miller said. “A lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.”
Trump campaigned for the White House on a pledge to deport millions of undocumented migrants and has repeatedly referred to their presence in the United States as an “invasion.”
Since taking office in January, Trump has been seeking to step up deportations, but his efforts have met with pushback from multiple federal courts which have insisted that migrants targeted for removal receive due process.
Among other measures, the Republican president invoked an obscure wartime law in March to summarily deport hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a prison in El Salvador.
Several federal courts have blocked further deportations using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act and the Supreme Court also weighed in, saying migrants subject to deportation under the AEA must be given an opportunity to legally challenge their removal in court.
The AEA was last used to round up Japanese-Americans during World War II and was previously invoked during the War of 1812 and World War I.
Suspending habeas corpus could potentially allow the administration to dispense with individual removal proceedings and speed up deportations, but the move would almost certainly be met with stiff legal challenges and end up in the Supreme Court.
It has been suspended only rarely in US history, most notably by president Abraham Lincoln during the 1861-1865 Civil War and in Hawaii after the December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.