LARNACA – Pope Francis has landed in Cyprus, the first leg of his eastern Mediterranean pastoral visit that also is scheduled to take him to Athens and Lesbos, papal authorities said Thursday.

 On his 35th international journey, the pope will confront the migration crisis happening at Europe’s borders, with the aim of giving those who suffer, including the states who are facing the bulk of the problem alone, a voice. He will also reflect on Turkey’s role in the crisis.

 The pontiff’s trip extends from Thursday until Monday. He will be in Cyprus for the first two days, then Athens and finally the island of Lesbos, a stone's throw from the Turkish coast, where thousands of migrants who aren’t welcomed anywhere else are staying in large open-air camps.

 Pope Francis went to the Moria camp on Lesbos in 2016 and brought a number of Syrian refugees back on the return flight to Rome. On the island he described the pitiful conditions in which entire families were living, huddled under tents and metal sheets and surrounded by barbed wire.

 Migration has always been a central issue for Francis. Last Sunday, he returned to the subject, mourning the latest deaths at sea and on the border with Belarus.

 “I have so much pain thinking about them,” said the pope. “Of those who are repatriated to North Africa, they are captured by traffickers who turn them into slaves. They sell women, torture men.”

 The pope will also be facing another dramatic situation on his trip - the Cypriot division that has persisted since 1974, when the Turks after a bloody war decided to occupy the side North.

 Cypriot bishop Salim Sfeir said, “the division of the island today is no longer tolerable. I think that Cyprus, thanks to the pope's visit, can still be closer to the rest of Europe.”

 “The problem of the self-proclaimed Turkish Cypriot republic,” the bishop continued, “is indeed a problem within the European Community.”

 “I realise that perhaps it will be difficult for the Pope to address this issue explicitly,” he concluded, “but we Cypriots hope to have the support of him and that of Brussels on the path of reunification.”

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