Pope Francis's popular car has gained a new life after his death as a medical car in Gaza – Country
Pope Francis’s life-long popular vehicles will be converted into medical vehicles during his 2014 trip to Bethlehem, an initiative he approved in the months after his death.
Ten years ago, the late Pope rode the birthplace of Jesus in a uniquely designed car, about 10 kilometers south of Jerusalem ten years ago. He also saw him greeting him among the crowd in Vatican City the day before his death on April 21.
Pope Francis visited the square at the end of Saint Peter's Square in popemobile at Easter Sunday.
Marco Lacobucci / Getty Images
The vehicle is equipped with emergency medical equipment to help treat teenagers living in Gaza, most of whom are damaged in health infrastructure.
Vatican News said Pope Francis entrusts the initiative to Catholic aid organization Caritas Jerusalem.
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Caritas Sweden Secretary General Peter Brune, who supported the project, told Vatican News that the project was “a time when Gaza’s health system was almost completely collapsed, the project was a concrete, life-saving intervention.”
“It’s not just a car,” Bruen said. “It’s a message that the world hasn’t forgotten the children of Gaza.”
Cardinal Arborelius, a Swedish cardinal, reportedly served as the next pope, reportedly contacted Francis for the idea of converting vehicles.
The mobile clinic will provide a handful of patients to the war-torn enclave, but reflects the late pope’s long-term efforts to support the most vulnerable civilians in the region, the New York Times reported.
According to Reuters, Gaza is home to a small Christian community, which Pope Francis has been in contact almost every day since the war broke out in October 2023, with Hamas militants attacking the Israeli music festival near the Gaza border.
“Papamobile is a very specific sign that Pope Francis cares about all the sufferings of children in Gaza even after his death!” Arborelius said in an email to the New York Times in concert.
The mobile healthcare department will provide rapid infection testing, vaccines, diagnostic equipment and suture kits. It will be managed and operated by medical professionals.
Caritas plans to deploy clinics to communities without access to humanitarian visits to Gaza.
Francis has several Popemobiles who visited Israel and Palestinian territories in 2014 and remained in the region after returning to the Vatican.
The conclusions to elect the new pope will begin on May 7.
– Reuters' documents
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