Pope Francis has been laid to rest at the Santa Maria Maggiore basilica.

The late pontiff’s entombment was a private event which allowed those close to him to pay their last respects.

This was after a funeral Mass at the Vatican.

Thousands of people, including world leaders and monarchs witnessed Pope Francis’ funeral mass at St Peter’s Basilica on Saturday.

From there, the coffin carrying the pontiff’s corpse was transported to Santa Maria Maggiore basilica where it was entombed.

Mourners queued up along the streets to witness as his corpse was moved from the Vatican to his final resting place.

The late Argentine is the first in over a century to be buried outside the Vatican.

Speaking during the funeral, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, said the Catholic pontiff “touched minds and hearts” and wanted to “build bridges, not walls.

”Pope Francis died on Easter Monday at the age of 88. In his final moment, the deceased suffered a stroke, coma, and a heart failure.

Burying Pope Francis at St. Mary Major in the Pauline Chapel followed the request he wrote in his spiritual testament.

The Pauline Chapel houses the ancient icon of Maria Salus Populi Romani.

His death was confirmed through electrocardiographic thanatography.

Pope Francis was admitted at Gemelli hospital in Rome on February 14 after suffering from pneumonia in both lungs.

The Vatican, however, claimed that the Pope was making progress in recent days that followed.

He was later allowed to return home after his health condition improved.

At least 11 people were feared dead after a drone strike by the Rapid Support Forces, RSF, hit a displacement camp in Sudan’s River Nile state in an attack that also took out the regional power station for the fourth time.

The RSF, which denied carrying out the attack has reportedly targeted power stations in army-controlled locations in central and northern Sudan for the past several months.

“This morning we heard a large explosion and we found two families that had been burnt completely inside their tents, while they were sleeping.

“We had left Khartoum fearful of the war and now the war has followed us here. I don’t know where I will go with my family and children, we have no shelter or place to go to,” teacher Mashair Hemeidan said as she shed tears.

The escalation of such strikes, which have hampered the country’s electrical grid and plunged millions into weeks-long blackouts, comes two years into a damaging war as the army has been pushing the paramilitary force out of central Sudan.

Ground fighting in the war is now focused in the Darfur region, where the RSF is fighting to seize the army’s remaining foothold, driving hundreds of thousands from their homes.

There has also been fighting in western Omdurman, part of the capital where the RSF remains present.

Some 179 families displaced by the fighting in the capital had been living in difficult conditions in an abandoned building and surrounding tents outside the town of al-Damer, receiving little in the way of humanitarian assistance.

The camp was located about three kilometers (1.9 miles) from the Atbara power station which was also struck.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, has announced the arrest of 22 Nigerians accused of orchestrating a series of sextortion schemes.

According to the FBI, the sextortion scams have led to the suicides of more than 20 teenage boys in the United States since 2021.

The latest arrests were made as the result of Operation Artemis, a landmark collaborative effort involving law enforcement agencies from Nigeria, the US, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

The suspects were apprehended after almost two-year investigation into online sextortion rackets preying on teenage boys across social media platforms.

This was disclosed in a statement published on the FBI’s website.

The FBI noted that perpetrators posed as young women online, luring victims into sharing sexually explicit images.

It added that once the perpetrators obtained the images, they used them to extort money from the victims under threat of public exposure.

“In many cases, even after payments were made, the threats continued—pushing some victims to tragic ends,” the statement added.

Speaking on the development, Special Agent Karen R., who coordinated the Bureau’s involvement, said: “This is not a victimless crime. These are real children suffering real consequences.”