Pope Francis' trip to Africa postponed indefinitely for health reasons
Pope Francis.
(File image).
AFP - VINCENZO PINTO
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
The Vatican confirms that the sovereign pontiff will not be able to travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan in early July due to severe knee pain.
Pope Francis' trip to Africa postponed indefinitely for health reasons.
The Vatican has indeed confirmed that the sovereign pontiff could not go to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan in early July because of his severe knee pain.
Advertising
Read more
With our Vatican correspondent,
Eric Sénanque
This postponement is not totally a surprise, since the beginning of May, in fact, the pope has been moving around in a wheelchair.
He suffers from gonalgia, a particularly painful osteoarthritis of the knee and has already undergone several infiltrations to relieve it.
"
Accepting the request of the doctors
, explained the spokesman of the Holy See,
and in order not to cancel the results of the knee therapies still in progress, the Holy Father is forced, with regret, to postpone the apostolic trip to
Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan
scheduled for July 2-7, at a new date to be defined
”.
That's what the official Vatican statement says.
Long awaited in Juba
Pope Francis was
expected in Kinshasa
, but especially also in Goma where he was to meet displaced people who are victims of the violence that is still raging in the Kivu region.
A meeting that was eagerly awaited, as was his stopover in Juba, the southern Sudanese capital where his presence had been expected for several years.
No date has therefore yet been set for a new trip and nothing says that at 85, he can go to the two African countries.
Another apostolic trip, the one planned for Canada at the end of July, has not yet been officially postponed, but could also be seriously compromised.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_EN
Pope Francis
ground floor
South Sudan