Immigrant or martyr: for some people those are real alternatives.

The deadliest migration route in the world. And yet people are desperate enough to risk their lives (and their families') to cross it.

A news item from Fides, a Catholic news agency that specializes in updates from mission territories, sheds more light on the phenomenon, and connects it with the latest series of beheadings of people whom ISIS identifies as members of  the "hostile Ethiopian Church". 

"According to government sources and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, most probably the victims [of beheading by ISIS] are poor Ethiopian immigrants belonging to the multitudes of men and women trying to reach Europe through Libya and then embark on the boats managed by the criminal network of smugglers."

The horrific loss of life at sea is forcing Europe to take action, not only to rescue the next threatened boatload of travelers, but to address some of the reasons these people are taking their lives in their hands. As the month of May peeks around the corner, would it be too much to ask to pray a daily Rosary, or at least a decade of the Rosary, for Our Lady's guidance?