Pope Francis expressed gratitude to Malta on Sunday evening after a packed two-day mission to the island, his first overseas trip in 2022. 

His Air Malta flight to Rome left at 8pm.

In a telegram to President George Vella, he expressed his gratitude to the President himself, the civil authorities and all the Maltese people “for the heartfelt kindness and hospitality shown to me during my visit”.

“I pray that, through the intercession of St Paul the Apostle, your nation will be abundantly blessed by almighty God,” the Pope wrote.

The 85-year-old pontiff wrapped his visit with a pointed pro-migrant message and drew his sharpest rebuke yet of Russia's invasion.

"Let us pray for peace, thinking of the humanitarian tragedy of tormented Ukraine, still under the bombardments of this sacrilegious war," Francis said during an open-air mass on the Granaries.

Just before flying out, Francis visited the Ħal Far Peace Lab, which houses migrants, and heard testimonies from young men who arrived on Malta's shores, and embraced them.

He said the world must imagine "that those same people we see on crowded boats or adrift in the sea, on our televisions or in the newspapers, could be any one of us, or our son or daughter."

He noted that, just on Saturday, news arrived of more than 90 people drowned in the Mediterranean, with just four survivors.

He drew applause from the crowd when, in a veiled reference to Libya, he said many migrants' rights were violated on their long journeys, often "with the complicity of the competent authorities".

Francis had previously urged Malta to do more to welcome desperate people who arrive on the archipelago, living up to its status as a "safe harbour" that in the first century AD welcomed the Apostle Paul who shipwrecked here.

As the Peace Lab is readying to receive some refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, outside, members of Malta's Ukrainian community urged the pope to keep speaking out.

On Saturday, he asked Malta to fight corruption and land speculation and was greeted by thousands in Gozo.