A security plan will remain in effect during the conclave and the election of the new pontiff.

The Italian Civil Protection Director Fabio Ciciliano anticipates that at least 200,000 people will attend Pope Francis’s funeral in St. Peter’s Square on Saturday, and another 250,000 will gather for the election of his successor in the days following.

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“We are analyzing the flow of faithful arriving in Italy and Rome—by road, train, plane, and ship—with special attention to arrivals from South America, particularly from Argentina,” said Ciciliano.

“We are monitoring the number of people moving throughout our country in order to adjust the reception and management measures by our Operations Committee,” he added, explaining that Civil Protection volunteers are arriving from all Italian regions and that “in practice, there are 2,500 people available each day.”

The most delicate moment is the transfer of the casket from St. Peter’s to the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, where Pope Francis will be buried immediately after the funeral.

“A funeral procession will need to be organized because, along the route, thousands of people will want to bid the Pope a final farewell. To find an event of this kind, you have to go far back in time—and even then, the numbers were significantly lower,” Ciciliano said.

The entire security plan will remain in effect during the conclave and the election of the new pontiff, and in the coming hours, there will be another meeting “to finalize the plan to strengthen telephone and data networks and to prepare for the reception of foreign delegations.”

For the time being, Italy has allocated 5 million euros for the organization of these events, according to media reports.

teleSUR/ JF

Source: EFE

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