VATICAN CITY: One of Pope Francis’s popemobiles is being transformed into a mobile health clinic for children in the Gaza Strip, fulfilling one of his final wishes, the Vatican’s official media outlet said on Sunday.
The vehicle, used by the late pontiff during his 2014 visit to the Holy Land, is being outfitted with diagnostic and emergency medical equipment to help young patients in the Palestinian enclave, where health services have been devastated by the Israeli invasion.
Pope Francis, who died last month, entrusted the initiative to the Catholic aid organization Caritas Jerusalem in the months before his death, Vatican News said.
“This is a concrete, life-saving intervention at a time when the health system in Gaza has almost completely collapsed,” Peter Brune, Secretary General of Caritas Sweden, which is supporting the project, told Vatican News.
The mobile unit will be equipped with rapid infection tests, vaccines, diagnostic tools, and suture kits, and staffed by medical personnel. Caritas plans to deploy the clinic to communities without access to functioning health care facilities once humanitarian access to Gaza is feasible.
“It’s not just a vehicle,” Brune added. “It’s a message that the world has not forgotten about the children in Gaza.”
Gaza has a tiny Christian community and the Vatican has said Francis used to call the Holy Family Church in Gaza on an almost daily basis for much of the war, which started in October 2023 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel.
Francis had a number of popemobiles, with the one used in the 2014 visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories staying in the region following his return to the Vatican.
A conclave to elect a new pope starts on May 7.
Pope Francis’s popemobile set to become health clinic for Gaza children
https://arab.news/8gt8c
Pope Francis’s popemobile set to become health clinic for Gaza children
- Vehicle, used by the late pontiff during his 2014 visit to the Holy Land, is being outfitted with diagnostic and emergency medical equipment to help patients in Gaza
- Francis had a number of popemobiles, with the one used in the 2014 visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories staying in the region following his return to the Vatican
Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe
RAQQA: Baghdad on Friday urged European states to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who fought for Daesh, and who are now being moved to Iraq from detention camps in Syria.
Europeans were among 150 Daesh prisoners transferred so far by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria. They were among an estimated 7,000 militants due to be moved across the border to Iraq as the Kurdish-led force that has held them for years relinquishes swaths of territory to the advancing Syrian army.
In a telephone call on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said European countries should take back and prosecute their nationals.
An Iraqi security official said the 150 so far transferred to Iraq were “all leaders of the Daesh group, and some of the most notorious criminals.” They included “Europeans, Asians, Arabs and Iraqis,” he said.
Another Iraqi security source said the group comprised “85 Iraqis and 65 others of various nationalities, including Europeans, Sudanese, Somalis, and people from the Caucasus region.”
They all took part in Daesh operations in Iraq, he said, and were now being held at a prison in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that “non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces jailed thousands of militant fighters and detained tens of thousands of their relatives in camps as it pushed out Daesh in 2019 after five years of fighting.
