Pope Francis will begin this Tuesday a six-day tour during which he will visit Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan and with which he will seek to draw attention to the need for peace and stabilization in Africa and the defense of the continent’s natural resources.
“We will live together, as brothers, an ecumenical pilgrimage of peace,” the pontiff announced this Sunday, referring to the trip on which he From January 31 to February 5, he will travel almost 13,000 kilometers, give 13 speeches and visit Kinshasa and Juba, the capitals of the DRC and South Sudan.African countries with a Christian majority.
“The Democratic Republic of the Congo suffers, especially in the east of the country, due to armed clashes and exploitation; while South Sudan, torn by years of war, can’t wait for the continuous violence that forces so many people to live displaced and in conditions of great difficulty,” he later added the pontiff, 86 years old, on what will be his first exit from Italy in 2023.
According to what Vatican sources told Télam, one of the central axes will be criticism of the exploitation of natural resources, in an area where they are extracted the so-called “blood diamonds” with conditions of violence on local workers, among other riches that are taken from the African subsume by powers or multinationals.
Francis will be in the DRC from January 31 to February 3 with the motto “All reconciled in Christ”while in the second stage of the visit he will go to South Sudan under the phrase “I pray that all may be one”, in a visit with a strong ecumenical sense in which he will be accompanied by the Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby and by the person in charge of The Scottish Church, Iain Greenshields.
In the DRC, Francisco will hold meetings with the political authorities and with the victims of violence in the country, in addition to the traditional meetings with young people, members of the clergy and Jesuits.
“These are really very deep wounds. It is a prolonged situation: violence, opposition and conflict. So the fact that the Pope is meeting with the victims of this situation is a very significant gesture that will undoubtedly comfort them,” he described in dialogue with the Vatican press Secretary of State Pietro Parolin.
Francis already visited Africa in 2015, when he went to Kenya, the Central African Republic and Uganda; in 2017 to go to Egypt; and in 2019 by first visiting Morocco and then Mauritania, Mozambique and Mauritius.
In the midst of new conflicts in the eastern DRC, the Pope will not go to Goma, an area of armed violence that did appear in the original program of the trip, planned for July but later postponed due to Francis’ pain in his right knee.
The Goma area has become the epicenter of an increasingly bloody confrontation between the Republic of the Congo and Rwanda in recent days, hitting the inhabitants of North Kivu, in an area where criminal gangs mingle with the organized militias that the regular Congolese army cannot defeat.
In fact, On February 22, 2021, the then Italian ambassador to the DRC, Luca Attanasio, was killed in an ambush of rebel groups from the M23 group, which according to the Congolese authorities receives aid from Rwanda.
In South Sudan, meanwhile, Francis will repeat the meetings with official authorities, will add an ecumenical prayer and will also meet with internally displaced persons due to the conflicts in the so-called “youngest country in the world.”
In 2019, Francis gave a strong gesture of support for the peace process in South Sudan when receiving the leaders of the two groups in conflict in the nation, whom he summoned to be “artisans of peace, in a spirit of fraternity and solidarity with each member of our people”, and, after kissing their feet, he had expressed his desire to visit the African country if the political situation stabilizes.
Francis brought together Salva Kiir Mayardit, President of the Republic, and four of the five vice presidents appointed for the national unity government that is due to begin in May for a “spiritual retreat”: Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon, James Wani Igga, Taban Deng Gai and Rebecca Nyandeng DeMabior.
“We hope that this trip gives continuity to that very special moment and stimulates them to make concrete choices, to make very practical decisions so that the peace process can achieve its goal,” added Parolin.
South Sudan, designated “the world’s youngest country” after its independence from Sudan in 2011, seeks to emerge from a civil war that began in 2013, when a dispute between Kiir and his sacked vice president Machar sparked political conflict.
Francis already visited Africa in 2015, when he went to Kenya, the Central African Republic and Uganda; in 2017 to go to Egypt; and in 2019 by first visiting Morocco and then Mauritania, Mozambique and Mauritius.
