this is bbc news. pope francis has led mass in st peter's square in front of more than 30,000 people, kicking off the year's easter services just a day after leaving hospital in rome follwing treatment for bronchitis. authorities in the united states have been assessing the damage caused by storms and tornadoes. at least 21 people are known to have died and dozens are missing after the severe weather left a trail of devastation. the uk home secretary says the government is looking at further land sites and vessels to house migrants who travel to the uk on small boats, just days after announcing three former military sites will be used. coach travellers in dover face estimated waits of six to eight hours, despite extra ferries being laid on overnight to try and help clear the backlog as passengers travel abroad

for the easter holidays. now it's time for traces left behind: a migrantjourney. every year, thousands of migrants try to make their way to europe. as they leave their homelands behind them, the possessions they take with them give us a sense of who they are. remnants of a painful past or glimpses or a more hopefulfuture. some dedicated people on the italian island of lampedusa have saved some of those items. where are these people? where are they? i'm here to see if i can trace just one person through one of these lost objects and shed new life on this dangerous journey taken by so many.

my name is thomas naadi, and i'm a bbc correspondent. i'm based in ghana, my country, but myjourney starts here in lampedusa. lampedusa has long been an arrival spot for refugees seeking better opportunities in europe. i'm here to meet giacomo, one of the founders museum set up for objects lost by those travelling on this route. i'm hoping to use one of these objects as a lens for looking closer into the migrant�*s story. 0ne person's journey indicative of so many, traced through a single object lost with along the way. giacomo shows me some of the objects closest to his heart.

giacomo found most of these objects at a dump on lampedusa, where for years, the authorities put them.

it's a slightly strange feeling to be standing here on this island in the footprints of so many. looking at all those objects, i could just imagine the pain, the sacrifice and the strength needed to make this journey. a pain that feels in so many ways familiar.

i come from the northern part of the country. we lived there for a while, and in 1994, there were ethnic conflicts, so we were internally displaced. everything happened very quickly. we couldn't pick any of our possessions, we lost everything, we ended up in a displacement camp. so, when i saw that some of the migrants took with them samples of soil of their homelands, i can very much relate to that. i know how it feels to lose your home and to be far away from home. coming here, i realised the impossibility of finding people through items like these samples of soil, so i asked giacomo if there is anything more tangible i can use.

he brings out a folder overflowing with documents, photos, personal address books, and i get the first pangs of excitement. egyptian passport? si. 0h, nigeria! let me take a picture of this. republic of guinea? let me take a shot of this. oh, that's a lovely picture of three guys, looking very fashionable. he laughs. oh, wow! that's a ghanaian driver's licence. let me take a picture of this. ghanaian passport? many people. so, where are these people? where are they?

sometimes, the first people migrants encounter when crossing the mediterranean sea are the local fishermen. in 2021, vincenzo was fishing outside the 12 mile radius that he was allowed to fish in, as so many do in order to make a living. he came across a migrant boat taking on water. he saved 2a people by alerting the officials, even though he knew he may face legal consequences.

many making the journey are not so lucky. people have crossed the mediterranean in all directions for thousands of years, but recently, this story has been one of tragedy. one of the worst disasters happen on october the 3rd, 2013, when a boat sank after catching fire half a mile off the coast of lampedusa. 368 of the migrants on board were killed. the magnitude of the disaster shocked italy and sent reports around the world. now, every year, people come to lampedusa to remember those lost.

this woman was 18 when she survived the disaster. like most on board, she had fled eritrea.

with more than 20,000 recorded deaths and disappearances since 2014, this stretch of sea is the deadliest migration route in the world. as i look out onto these waters, the reality that it is a graveyard for thousands of people really hits me hard.

fabio is part of a local volunteer group that looks after the graves of migrants buried here on the island. only a handful are identified.

this is heartbreaking. he tells me that lampedusa forces people to take sides. you either stand with humanity or you turn your back on it — something that goes beyond this tiny island on the front line of the global story of migration.

my time in lampedusa is drawing to a close. along with the memories i made on this trip, i'm taking home countless photos of documents, and giacomo has also given me permission to take a few key documents. back in my home city, accra, first stop — the office. look at this passport i found. i need to take a closer look. picture doesn't really give you much. did he make it, did he not make it? republic of ghana driver licence. we can work with this. i remember i got some books of a lot

of contacts from different parts of west africa. wow. this letter i can't read, i have to get translation done. it's not going to be easy, but at least we have some documents to work with. i don't want to imagine a situation where i'm not able to find anyone. i don't even want to think about it. and so, we begin. i write to the driver's license authority and passport office to see if they can help with two ghanaian documents i have. i sent a letter to a bbc colleague in case the translation reveals any names, numbers or addresses. and i begin ploughing through the endless list of address books in phone book. sorry, the number you dialled is incorrect. let me try... phone rings. it's going through.

oh, god! he laughs. please check the number and dialagain. thank you. this is very difficult. i knew this wasn't going to be easy, but i didn't know it will be this difficult. it's now a waiting game. let's hope something comes back from all the leads i'm chasing. a particularly high number of people migrate from this region. i'm meeting with ghanaians who have at one point left the country, but have now returned home. this group has come together to raise awareness around the dangers of the journey

to europe, discouraging young people from following their footsteps. the members support each other financially and, more importantly, emotionally. like most of the members

of the association we've just met, this man has travelled to libya and hope of improving the life of his family, but unfortunately did not go as planned.

myjourney has taken several months and had a toll on me, but is nothing compared to what others have been through. whether to grieve or move on with your life is something that i cannotjust begin to imagine. back in accra, i've heard a response about one of the documents i enquired about — the ghanian driver's licence. "we are constrained by the details of the detail protection act." dead end. i was hoping to get some useful information i can work with, but it appears this leads me nowhere.

my hopes rise again when i receive a translation of the letter. "the person went to prison, handed food and clothes to their brothers..." another part describes how his friend daniel arrived for the first time in the town, and that's where ethiopians and eritreans were found. some of them lost their smuggling fees and other were simply waiting to cross. it's so powerful to get a glimpse into someone�*s experience through their own words, but unfortunately, my hopes are yet again short—lived. i'm back to the beginning again. i have to look into other documents, because no address,

no contact numbers — nothing. so i have nothing to work with. and then one day, i get a call from the document fraud expertise centre of the ghana immigration service. i was referred to him by the passport office. he and his team are experts when it comes to investigating documents. i've literally been harassing him. i've called him every day, sometimes early in the morning and if he's not responded, ijust show up at his office. he will tell me, "thomas, just relax." the only thing you told me over the phone is that he got the news about the driver licence i sent him. thank you very much. hello, good afternoon, sir. welcome, thomas.

thank you. i was running away from you! laughter. tell me you have some good news for me. of course, of course. it's not that i've been avoiding your calls! now that i have actually called do you know that i have good news for you. we've been able to establish a link on the name. you know, when we applied to the drivers licence, we applied to the dvla but we got information but unfortunately, the information only has to do with the address of the applicant. you and i know the addresses in ghana... even locating the place, it's a whole task on its own. that was when you are calling me. i could not take your call any more because we thought

we had hit a dead end. then, the next line of action was to take the name and run it through our system in the airport to see if any information on him. that was difficult because he's not the only person with that name in ghana. after bouncing between driver's licence and passport databases, he managed to access the phone numberfor a relative of the driver's licence holder. we were only hoping for this breakthrough, and it did happen. thank you very much. i was able to put down few details for you prior to your arrival here. i don't know which one will be useful to you — i believe the number will be very useful. i need everything! i can't wait to have it! yes, thank you so much. oh, my god. thank you very much. all right. this is the moment i have been waiting for — a number, a tangible connection.

after a brief phone call, i can't believe i'm on my way to germany to meet the owner of the driver's licence giacomo first showed me in lampedusa many months ago. hello, richard? good morning. guten morgen, mr thomas. i'm in front of your house. i can't wait to meet you. be with you shortly. all right. here we are, welcome home. thank you _ thank you very much. like many from west africa, richard travelled to europe via libya. legally, it's very rough. it took me, let's see, two years from ghana and nigeria. nigeria and back to cotonou. to niger to chad, chad to libya. it's hell.

but there's no hope at home, so you just continue. sometimes you meet a group, the whole 30, 35 passengers, with the driver, the car is there and they are all dead. the driver only has the right to use the water because they use it to put inside the car. some killed the passengers for your own water to drink. when richard finally arrived in libya, he was kidnapped for ransom. she doesn't have money. it is easier for you to call your family to send money or your dad. richard eventually made it to tripoli and then in 2011

when gaddafi's regime fell, he decided to attempt crossing. when you finally got in lampedusa, you finally arrived, what was that feeling like? i was so weak, very, very weak, but i was... "finally, i have seen light." richard, i've got something to show you. wow. - can i have it? yeah. quietly: wow. so grateful to have it back. wow, thank you very much. how many years? 2014? yes. it's expired! laughter. it's expired, my brother! richard found his way from lampedusa to bremen, germany, where he now works as a forklift truck driver. now that you are in europe, is that what you imagined or hoped for? when i was in africa, i thought europe, things are easy. you get money easy.

but it's not like that — you have to work hard. but at home, there was no plan for me to leave my house or to survive so, i would say i'm grateful to be here. i've been looking for one person, one story, and i will never forget finding richard, and learning about his challenging journey. like all of us, he has simply been searching for a better life. but it was through the search itself, through the many incredible people that i've met and spoken with, that i really came to a new understanding of the reality faced by migrants today. richard's story, like every migrant�*s story, is a story of risk, a story of hope.

hello. after the very wet month of march, april has started off on a drier note. and we'll continue to see that drier, brighter theme to the weather, not just through today, but actually over the next couple of days as well. high pressure building across the uk. there's still a bit of cloud drifting around through the rest of the day, particularly across parts of scotland, down through the irish sea, wales, the south west of england, too. just the remnants of an old weather front here. so the odd spot of drizzle, but most places looking dry. plenty of sunshine for central and eastern areas, but only nine or ten degrees close to the east coast. typically 12 or 13 further west. some late sunshine into the evening hours. and then it's clear and dry for most of us overnight, patchy cloud tending to melt away, especially for central and eastern areas. so temperatures here down a few degrees below freezing in a few spots, just a bit milder for the likes of northern ireland and to the north

west of scotland, too. but tomorrow, another dry settled day, lots of spring sunshine, more than we've got out there today, in fact, and it won't feel quite as cool around the east coast, but still ten degrees or so here whereas further inland, 12 or 13. bye— bye.

this is bbc news broadcasting to viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm lewis vaughanjones and these are the latest headlines: at least 26 people are now known to have died after severe storms batter the north—east of the united states. the bbc has been told there are �*positive updates' in the case of british men, two of whom are pictured here, who were arrested by the taliban in afghanistan earlier this year. pope francis presides over palm sunday mass at the vatican — just a day after leaving hospital in rome for treatment for bronchitis. more than a hundred thousand people take part in protests across israel for the 13th consecutive week againstjudicial reforms — despite the government's decision to pause the legislation.