VATICAN – When Pope Francis led the recitation of the Angelus prayer Jan. 20, he told the crowd in St. Peter's Square that he had "two pains in my heart: Colombia and the Mediterranean."

PALERMO, Italy – Young African men crowded the courtyard, while others squatted on the cool, gray marble floor inside the Caritas diocesan facility near the gritty central train station of the Sicilian capital.

ROME – The number of migrants and refugees who have died while making the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean is expected to reach an all-time high in 2016, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency said.

ROME – The same day Pope Francis brought 12 Syrian refugees to Rome from Greece, a merchant ship rescued 41 refugees, including a three-year-old child. They told human rights workers they saw as many as 500 others drown when the refugees' boat sank.

NAIROBI, Kenya - A surge of migrant deaths in deadly voyages across the Mediterranean Sea has become a modern-day refugee crisis.