The Vatican newspaper devoted the most prominent front-page coverage in its April 30 edition to a migrant boat diaster that left over 50 people dead in the Atlantic Ocean off the western coast of Africa.
“They remained at the mercy of the Atlantic Ocean for two days, their hands desperately clinging to the wreck of their boat, their mouths parched with thirst, their eyes wide with fear,” the unsigned article began. “Two days, 48 hours, 3,000 minutes of suffering for nine migrants, the only survivors of the shipwreck of their boat which occurred yesterday off the coast of the Canary Islands.”