The Pope has called for urgent coordinated action to prevent more African migrants dying at sea in a desperate attempt to reach Europe.
Touched by last week's tragedy, when a ship carrying more than 200 illegal migrants heading for Europe sank near the Libyan coast, Pope Benedict XVI called for action to prevent such incidents.
"We can't resign ourselves to tragedies like this that unfortunately have been occurring for some time," the Pope told pilgrims who packed St Peter's Square to hear his Palm Sunday message.
"The dimensions of the phenomenon make it increasingly urgent that strategies coordinated between the European Union and African states, just like adequate measures of a humanitarian nature, are taken to prevent migrants from turning to unscrupulous traffickers," the Reuters news agency quoted him as saying.
The Mediterranean is littered with migrant tragedies. Although no figures exist it is believed that hundreds may perish every year trying to cross from Africa to Europe. The worst on record is what has become known as the Yioham disaster, when 283 immigrants drowned off the Sicilian coast on Christmas Day in 1996 while being transferred between two ships.
Libya is both a destination and transit country for migrants, many of whom take on odd jobs to raise enough money to pay smugglers for the risky journey to Italy.
Malta and Libya recently signed a memorandum of understanding providing that the two countries coordinate and support each other in search and rescue operations.
It is the first official document that clearly marks out the search and rescue region of the north-African state and will hopefully improve coordination over rescue between the two countries.
The Pope's words come after Gozo Bishop Mario Grech took up the subject of illegal immigration on Friday, lashing out at the government's detention policy in a homily he gave on the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.
"The time has come to ask ourselves in all honesty: Is it possible that a civilised country such as ours, having the values we think we are defined by, sees nothing wrong in keeping locked in detention women and men who committed no crime and who are only here because they are seeking another country's protection?" Mgr Grech said.
This was the first time that one of the Church's leaders in Malta has attacked the policy of detention, the one policy that both political parties agree on but which has been questioned by local NGOs and international humanitarian and civil rights' organisations.
The debate on the illegal immigration reached a climax last month with a parliamentary debate on the phenomenon. Last year, a record 2,757 arrived in Malta, along with over 750 in the first two months of this year.
The government is considering whether to raise the maximum five-year prison term for people caught trafficking illegal immigrants.