Ukrainian mayor attends Vatican Easter vigil

Pope Francis presides over a Easter vigil ceremony in St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican (AP)

Pope Francis has called for “gestures of peace in these days marked by the horror of war” in an Easter vigil homily in St Peter’s Basilica attended by the mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city of Melitopol.

The pontiff noted that while “many writers have evoked the beauty of starlit nights … nights of war, however, are riven by streams of light that portend death”.