Pope: Stop human traffickers

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis on Sunday called on authorities to stop human traffickers operating in the Mediterranean, as he expressed his sorrow over last week’s migrant boat disaster off Italy’s Calabrian coast, in which dozens of people were killed.

“I renew my appeal to prevent such tragedies from happening again. May traffickers of human beings be stopped,” the Pope said in his weekly address to crowds in St Peter’s Square.

Local authorities said 70 bodies had so far been recovered following the incident. The migrants had departed from Turkey and were from countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Somalia and Syria.

“May journeys of hope never again turn into journeys of death, may the clear waters of the Mediterranean no longer be bloodied by such dramatic accidents,” the Pope said.

Around 80 people survived after the boat broke up and sank in rough seas near Steccato di Cutro, a resort on the Calabria region’s eastern coast. Authorities estimated it had carried up to 200 migrants.

Three alleged traffickers were arrested this week and prosecutors began looking into the way emergency services responded to the disaster, after accusations that authorities were slow to react.

THE founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force said his troops now tightening their grip on the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut were being deprived of ammunition and if they were forced to retreat the entire front would collapse.

“If Wagner retreats from

Bakhmut now, the whole front will collapse,” Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video published over the weekend. “The situation will not be sweet for all military formations protecting Russian interests.”

Reuters could not independently verify when and where the video was recorded. The footage was published on a Telegram channel that has been disseminating Prigozhin news and has associated itself with the Wagner Group. The video was not published on Mr Prigozhin’s usual press service channel.

Mr Prigozhin on Friday said that his units had “practically surrounded Bakhmut,” where fighting has intensified in the past week with Russian forces attacking from nearly all sides.

But on Sunday he complained

that most of the ammunition that his forces were promised by Moscow in February had not yet been shipped.

“For now, we are trying to figure out the reason: is it just ordinary bureaucracy or a betrayal,” Mr Prigozhin said on his usual press service Telegram channel.

The mercenary chief regularly criticises Russia’s defence chiefs and top generals. Last month, he accused Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and others of “treason” for withholding supplies of munitions to his militia.

In a nearly four-minute video published on the Wagner Orchestra Telegram channel on Saturday, Mr Prigozhin said his troops were worried that Moscow wanted to set them up as possible scapegoats if Russia lost the war.

“If we retreat, then we will go down in history forever as people who have taken the main step towards losing the war,” Mr Prigozhin said.

“This is exactly the problem with ammunition hunger.”

Speaking seemingly from a bunker, Mr Prigozhin said in the video that his troops would wonder whether they were being “set up” for defeat by the country’s top brass or maybe even by someone “higher”.

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