Pope Francis returned to Lesbos, the migration flashpoint he first visited in 2016, and called the neglect of migrants a shipwreck of civilisation. The pope said that there are those who persist in treating the problem as a matter that doesn't concern them, as well as some two hours at the Mavrovouni camp on Lesbos, where nearly 2,200 asylum-seekers live.
On the second day of his visit to Greece, he met dozens of child asylum-seekers and relatives standing behind metal barriers and stopped to embrace a boy called Mustafa.
Francis told a group of people through his interpreter, "I am trying to help you."
People were later gathered in a tent to sing songs and psalms to the pontiff, who listened to them, visibly moved.
Rosette Leo, a Congolese asylum seeker, said his visit was a blessing.
But Menal Albilal, a Syrian mother with a two-month-old baby whose asylum claim was rejected after two years on the island, said refugees want more than words, and they need help. Conditions here are not good for a baby, she told AFP.
Pope Francis warned that the Mediterranean Peninsula is becoming a grim cemetery without tombstones and that little has changed in the world with regard to the issue of migration. The root causes should be confronted not the poor people who pay the consequences and are even used for political propaganda he added.
According to the International Organization for Migration, 1,559 people have died or gone missing on the perilous Mediterranean crossing this year.
In the past few weeks, several people have died on the Belarus-Poland border, caught between the two countries' border guards. The European Union accuses Minsk of having weaponised migrants against the West.
A single incident last month drowned 27 people trying to cross to England. Britain and France have exchanged barbs over the increase in the number of migrants attempting to cross the deadly Channel crossing.
The temporary Mavrovouni tent camp was erected hurriedly after the sprawling camp of Moria, Europe's largest tent camp at the time, burned down last year.
The Greek authorities blamed a group of young Afghans for the incident, and security was significantly increased for the pontiff's visit on Sunday.
The pope's trip to Lesbos was shorter than his last, as he later held a mass for some 2,500 people at Megaron Athens Concert Hall.
In Cyprus, where the pope visited earlier this week, authorities said that 50 migrants would be relocated to Italy thanks to Francis.
During his last visit to Lesbos in 2016 he took 12 Syrian refugees with him.
Francis said at the beginning of his visit to Athens on Saturday that today, and not only in Europe, Francis is witnessing a retreat from democracy against populism's easy answers. Francis visited Moria on Saturday with Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, and Archbishop Ieronymos II, head of the Church of Greece.
The Mavrovouni camp has a capacity of 8,000 and currently holds 2,193 people, according to a facility official.
The processing times for asylum are now faster, according to authorities.
Greece is building a series of closed facilities on Greek islands with barbed wire fencing, surveillance cameras, X-ray scanners and magnetic gates that are closed at night.
Three such camps have been opened on the islands of Samos, Leros and Kos, with Lesbos and Chios to follow next year.
Once asylum-seekers are recognised as refugees, they are no longer eligible to remain in the camps, a fate shared with migrants whose requests for protection are rejected and who face deportation.
Many of these refugees are unable to find accommodation or work, a criticism that charities and aid agencies direct at the Greek state.
Greece denies the claims, insisting that its coastguard saves lives at sea.