Pope Francis is sporting a black eye after hitting his head on the Popemobile when it came to an abrupt stop.

The pontiff was travelling in his special car, with the famous raised platform which enables him to wave to the crowd, in Cartagena, Colombia on the last day of his visit to the south American country when it came to an abrupt halt causing him to hit his head on the bulletproof glass.

He sustained a bruise to his left eye and cut above his left eyebrow which dripped blood onto his white cassock.

The cut was swiftly treated with ice and bandaged up and he continued on his journey.

A spokesman for the Vatican, Greg Burke, told reporters: "The pope is all right. Ice was put on it and he was treated.

"He will continue the schedule for his visit with no changes."

The Pope was later heard joking that he had been “punched” but was “fine”.

The pontiff was in the country to appeal for it to “untie the knots of violence” following the government’s controversial peace deal with rebel group Farc which ended 50 years of civil war.

Speaking during mass for about 500,000 people in Cartagena’s port area, he said: "If Colombia wants a stable and lasting peace, it must urgently take a step in this direction, which is that of the common good, of equity, of justice, of respect for human nature and its demands.

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"Only if we help to untie the knots of violence, will we unravel the complex threads of disagreements."

While in the city he also paid a visit to the home of St Peter Claver, a 17th-century Jesuit priest who performed Catholic rites for slaves in defiance of their colonial masters who treated them as chattel.

The Pope used the occasion to again decry modern slavery and human trafficking and defend the rights of immigrants.

"Here in Colombia and in the world, millions of people are still being sold as slaves; they either beg for some expressions of humanity, moments of tenderness, or they flee by sea or land because they have lost everything, primarily their dignity and their rights," he said just before praying over the saint’s relics.