Pope Francis has pledged €100,000 to help migrants blocked on the border between Poland and Belarus, the Vatican announced Tuesday.

The money includes support for the Catholic charity Caritas Poland "to deal with the migration emergency on the border between the two countries", it said.

Since last summer, thousands of migrants - most of them from the Middle East, including war-torn Syria - have crossed or attempted to cross the Polish frontier from Belarus and enter the European Union.

The pope has made defending migrants a priority of his papacy, and has repeatedly called on EU leaders to be more welcoming to those arriving at its borders.

The Vatican said the pope had also pledged €100,000 for relief efforts in the Philippines, following the typhoon in December.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.