Pope Leo XIV, to visit Lampedusa July 4

Catholic pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, is planning to visit Lampedusa on July 4.

Pope Leo’s predecessor Pope Francis in 2013 made Lampedusa the site of his first official trip outside Rome. Francis died last April.

More than 33,450 migrants have died or gone missing in Mediterranean waters since the I.O.M. began tracking deaths at sea in 2014. Most of them died crossing the central Mediterranean between North African countries like Libya and European nations including Italy and Malta. Others have died in the narrower eastern straits between Turkey and Greece, or to the west between Morocco and Spain.

A migrant rescue organization, Mediterranea Saving Humans, said on social media: “This latest shipwreck is not a tragic accident, but the result of policies pursued by European governments, which refuse to open legal and safe entry routes.”

At least 725 people have gone missing in the central Mediterranean this year alone, including in one shipwreck in February in which at least 53 migrants, including two babies, went missing. Just last week, the Italian coast guard found 19 bodies and rescued 58 people after intercepting a dinghy filled with migrants that was in distress about 80 nautical miles from Lampedusa.