(ZENIT News / Vatican City-Rome-Awali, 02.11.2022).- On Thursday, November 3, Pope Francis began his 39th International Apostolic Journey, on this occasion to the Kingdom of Bahrain, to attend “Bahrain’s Forum for Dialogue: East and West for Human Coexistence.”
In the morning, before leaving his residence in Casa Santa Marta, the Holy Father met with three refugee families from Ukraine that have been received by Italian families. He was accompanied by Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, Prefect of the Dicastery for Charity. In the group was the wife of an Orthodox priest and two of her children, one 18 and the other 14 of the Kropyvnytskyi region, 150 kilometers from Mykolaiv. Her husband and adult son stayed in Ukraine. A second family was a 30-year-old mother with two daughters — 4 and 7 years old –, who fled from the partially occupied region of Zaporizhia. Also included in the group was a 53-year-old woman with a 13-year-old son who was seriously handicapped, and a 73-year-old mother from Kyiv.
After this meeting, the Pontiff went by car to the Rome-Fiumicino International Airport. At 9:45 am flight A330 / ITA Airways took off for Awali with the Pope on board; the plane landed at 4:36 pm (3:36 pm Rome time).