Vatican to digitalise Gulf documents after Qatari royal visit

Qatar's Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser attended a papal audience with Pope Francis in Rome, where she told the pope about the "grave situation of schools in the various areas of conflict".

Sheikha Moza is the founder of Education Above All Foundation, which aims at providing primary education to 1.1 million Syrian refugees in camps in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, where thousands of children are without any schooling and suffering trauma from their experiences in war.

Schools in Syria have also been bombed by Syrian regime and Russian warplanes, compounding the worsening situation for refugees in the country.

Later, an agreement was signed to digitalise the Vatican's manuscripts relating to the Gulf and other Islamic regions.

These are among some 8,000 manuscripts held in the Vatican Library and are currently being digitalised.

Sheikha Moza presented the pope with a decorated Arabic manuscript of the Gospels produced in 18th Century Ottoman Turkey. 

Pope Francis gave the Qatari royal a medallion depicting the olive tree of peace and an Arabic edition of his encyclical on the environment.