Pope Francis is grieving over images of a father and his 23-month-old daughter who drowned while attempting to cross the Rio Grande into the United States, the Vatican said in a statement. Francis, who has often spoken about the plight of migrants and refugees around the world, reacted to the widely-shared photos of the lifeless bodies of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, a migrant from El Salvador, and his daughter Valeria, with “immense sadness.” “The pope is profoundly saddened by their death, and is praying for them and for all migrants who have lost their lives while seeking to flee war and misery,” Alessandro Gisotti, the Vatican’s interim spokesperson, told reporters on Wednesday.

Massimo Valicchia/NurPhoto via Getty Images Pope Francis arrives for his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, June 26, 2019.

Martínez, his wife Tania Vanessa Ávalos, and their daughter Valeria left El Salvador on April 3, the Associated Press reports. Martínez’s mother, Rosa Ramírez, told the AP that her son planned to work in the U.S. for a few years to make enough money to build a house. The family arrived in Matamoros, Mexico, on Sunday and tried unsuccessfully to get a date to request asylum at the U.S. Consulate. Ávalos told the Mexican newspaper La Jornada that her husband, frustrated by the delay, decided to try swimming across the Rio Grande that same day. He set Valeria on the U.S. side of the river and turned back for his wife. When the child saw her father moving away, she apparently threw herself into the river. Martínez grabbed the girl, but they were both swept away by the current. Their bodies were discovered on Monday, about half a mile away from an international bridge, the AP reports. Journalist Julia Le Duc captured the photographs of the father and daughter lying face down in the river, the child’s arm draped around her father’s neck.

AP Photo/Julia Le Duc The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas.