SARAJEVO – Pope Francis arrived in Sarajevo Saturday to urge peace and reconciliation in Bosnia.
Bosnia was ravaged by war and remains ethnically divided, two decades after the fighting ended.
“Responsible politicians are called to the important task of being the first servants of their communities, taking actions safeguarding above all the fundamental rights … among which the right to religious freedom stands out”, he said.
Francis said this when he spoke to Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency of Muslim, Serb and Croat representatives.
“That way it will be possible to build, with concrete measures, a more peaceful and just society … working together to solve the many problems people experience daily,.
“Such measures are required to successfully oppose the barbarity of those who would make of every difference the occasion and pretext for further unspeakable violence.
“They are also required to help heal even the deepest wounds of war, he said.
He later moved to Kosevo football stadium, packed with some 65,000 people, for an open-air mass, the central event of the visit.
He also met with Christian Orthodox and Jewish leaders, and members of the Catholic clergy.
Tens of thousands of pilgrims had arrived in hundreds of buses overnight.
Apart from the Kosevo stadium, they packed the square in front of the Catholic cathedral in the city centre, keen to catch a glimpse of the Pope.
Sarajevo was besieged in the 1992-95 war which pitted Serbs against Muslims and Croats. Some 100,000 people in Bosnia were killed and more than two million displaced.
More than 10,000, including nearly 2,000 children, were killed in Sarajevo by relentless shelling and sniping from Serb positions in the surrounding mountains,
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The Pope’s agenda in Sarajevo includes visits to cemeteries, as a reminder of Sarajevo’s tragic history.
The intense schedule during Francis’ stay in the city prompted tight security arrangements: main streets were closed to traffic, gas mains were turned off and cafes were ordered to shut down along the planned route.
More than 4,000 police and army personnel were deployed t maintain law and order. (dpa/NAN)
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