Ms Ibrahim and her husband Daniel Wani thanked the pontiff for his support and he in turn thanked her for staying true to her Christian faith despite the threat of execution if she did not recant.

She was released after intense diplomatic negotiations from the Italian government and the Vatican ended an ordeal that lasted almost a year.

“Today we are happy, this is a day of celebration,” Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said as he greeted Ms Ibrahim and her family with his wife Agnese.

“This gesture by Sudan is testimony to the friendship between our country and Italy’s choice to be a protagonist in this event,” said Mr Pistelli.

Mr Pistelli first met Ms Ibrahim two weeks ago at the US Embassy in Khartoum where she and her family had sought refuge after a failed attempt to go to the US.

He said her passport was only returned to her at the embassy on Wednesday afternoon and she was informed she could leave with her children.

Olivia Warham, director of Waging Peace, a UK NGO that campaigns against genocide and systematic human rights violations in Sudan, said millions of Sudanese Christians faced daily brutality and ethnic cleansing by the Sudanese regime.

“Three years ago President Bashir made it plain there would be no room for non-Muslims in his Islamist Sudan. He has been good to his word, crushing dissent and systematically killing ethnic and religious minorities. Regular aerial bombardment by the Sudanese armed forces destroys communities and Christian hospitals, forcing people to flee from their fields to hide in the Nuba mountains,” she said.

“It is shocking that Bashir’s ideology of elimination provokes nothing more than the occasional words of regret from the international community, when we should be applying targeted smart sanctions on the architects of these atrocities.”

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