A Potemobile used by Pope Francis during a trip to Bethlehem in 2014 and throughout his life will be converted into a medical vehicle to help treat children from the Gaza Strip – an initiative he approved in the months preceding his death.
The late pontiff went around the West Bank in the unique designed car during the visit to the birthplace of Jesus, which is located about 10 kilometers south of Jerusalem, more than a decade ago. He was also seen to salute the crowds at Vatican City from the vehicle the day before his death on April 21.
Pope Francis in the Popemobile goes around the place at the end of the sacred mass on Easter Sunday on the Place de Saint-Pierre.
Marco Lacobucci / Getty Images
The vehicle is equipped with emergency medical equipment to help treat juvenile patients living in Gaza, where the majority of health infrastructure have been destroyed.
Pope Francis entrusted the initiative to the organization of Catholic Aid Caritas Jerusalem, said Vatican News.
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Peter Brune, secretary general of Caritas Sweden, who supports the project, told Vatican News that the project is “a concrete and vital intervention at a time when the health system in Gaza has almost completely collapsed”.
“It’s not just a vehicle,” said Brune. “This is a message that the world has not forgotten the children of Gaza.”
Cardinal Arborelius from Sweden, who is in the running to be the next pope, would have approached Francis with the idea of converting the vehicle.
The mobile clinic will serve a small number of patients in the enclave torn by the war, but reflects the long -standing efforts of the deceased to provide support for the most vulnerable civilians in the region, according to the New York Times.
According to Reuters, Gaza is home to a small Christian community, the one with which Pope Francis had been in contact almost daily since the war broke out in October 2023, after Hamas activists attacked an Israeli music festival near the Gaza border.
“The papamobile is a very concrete sign that Pope Francis is interested in all the suffering of children in Gaza, even after his death!” Arborelius said in an email on Monday at the New York Times.
The mobile medical unit will be filled with rapid infection tests, vaccines, diagnostic equipment and suture kits. It will be inhabited and operated by health professionals.
Caritas plans to deploy the clinic in communities without access to functional health establishments once humanitarian access to Gaza is possible.
Francis had several potemobiles, with that used during the visit in 2014 in Israel and the Palestinian territories remaining in the region after his return to the Vatican.
A conclave to elect a new pope begins on May 7.
– with reuters files
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