Pope arrives in Papua New Guinea for the second leg of his Southeast Asia and Oceania trip
Pope Francis has arrived in Papua New Guinea for the second leg of his four-nation trip through Southeast Asia and Oceania
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (AP) — Pope Francis arrived in Papua New Guinea on Friday for the second leg of his four-nation trip through Southeast Asia and Oceania, becoming the second pope to visit the poor, strategically important South Pacific nation.
A cannon salute and marching band greeted the 87-year-old pope on the tarmac of the Port Moresby airport as he arrived after a six-hour flight from Jakarta, Indonesia. During the brief welcome ceremony, the pope momentarily lost his balance while maneuvering from his wheelchair to a chair, but his security guards steadied him.
While he was travelling, Indonesian police revealed they had detained seven people from the Java and Sumatra regions on suspicion of making threats on social media of staging suicide bombings during papal events and disrupting the pope’s security protocol.
The spokesperson for the Indonesian police’s elite counterterrorism squad, Aswin Siregar, described the threats as primarily a publicity-seeking exercise, but added that the investigation was continuing.
