Pope Francis arrived this Friday in South Sudan, a country that is among the poorest on the planet and is devastated by civil war, for a visit to promote peace and reconciliation.
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The Argentine pontiff arrived at 2:45 pm (7:45 am Colombian time) in the South Sudanese capital, Juba, where he will remain for 48 hours. In the afternoon he will deliver a first speech before the authorities and the diplomatic corps.
From this Friday and for three days, Francis undertakes a “pilgrimage of peace” in South Sudan, a country that is among the poorest on the planet and is devastated by a civil war.
Before flying to Juba, the South Sudanese capital, Francis gave a speech before the Congolese bishops in the capital Kinshasa. There he asked them not to limit themselves to “political action” and to focus on the people, in a country where the Catholic Church traditionally acts as a counterpower.
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In Juba, the streets began to fill with people hours before the arrival of the pope. Many carried banners welcoming Francis.
The 86-year-old Argentine pontiff will be accompanied by the heads of the Churches of England and Scotland, representatives of the other two Christian denominations in that country of 12 million inhabitants.
The three religious leaders were personally involved in the peace process, despite the fact that the leaders have turned a deaf ear to calls for reconciliation.
After decades of fighting with Sudan, and two years after its independence in 2011, the country plunged into a five-year civil war in 2013 in which the sides of Salva Kiir and Riek Mashar clashed.
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Nearly 380,000 people died in the conflictwhich also left millions of displaced people and an economy in ruins.
Despite the 2018 peace agreement, violence continues, fueled by political elites.
The Church fills a void in areas without government services and where humanitarian workers are often the victims of attacks, when they are not killed violently.
Local authorities reported that at least 21 people died during an armed attack Thursday in South Sudan, moments before Pope Francis’ visit to this country ravaged by years of conflict.
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Armed herders killed 21 civilians in southern Kajo-Keji county on Thursday, local officials said in a statement, condemning the attack, calling it the “massacre of innocent civilians in a savage act of revenge.”
The attack occurred one day before the arrival of the Supreme Pontiff in South Sudan. Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual head of the Anglican Church, declared himself “appalled” on Twitter by the attack.
He regretted that these acts occur “too often” in the country and called for “South Sudan to unite in favor of a just peace.”
The Pope’s second destination on his tour of Africa
The 40th international trip of Francisco, 86, began this Tuesday in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and this Friday he moved to South Sudan.
The Supreme Pontiff will be accompanied by the leader of the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, Iain Greenshields, as the country has a significant presence of these Christian denominations.
Upon arrival in Juba, Welby and Greenshields went up to greet the pope on the plane, while South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit greeted him at the foot of the stairs.
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On the way to the presidential palace, where the pope will meet the president and vice presidents, thousands of people crowded to see him while calling for peace for the country.
In April 2019, a spiritual retreat was convened at the Vatican to help the peace process in South Sudan and during that initiative, In a gesture of humility that moved the world, Francis knelt down and kissed the feet of the South Sudanese president, Kiir Mayardit, and of the opposition Riek Machar and the rest of the leaders and urged them to proceed with the peace agreement signed the previous year.
The Pope will now go to the presidential palace where he will meet both President Mayardit and the opposition leader and vice president of the South Sudanese national unity government, Machar and the other vice presidents.
The call to keep this peace agreementwhich is advancing slowly – there have recently been some outbreaks of violence – will focus his speech to the authorities on the presidential palace in Juba.
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Tomorrow the meeting with the religious will take place in the Cathedral of Santa Teresa, while in the afternoon he will meet with the internally displaced, who are close to two million, and will listen to their stories.
Too will celebrate a mass in the mausoleum of John Karang and an ecumenical celebration with the participation of the three religious leaders.
South Sudan, one of the poorest countries
The youngest state in the world
On January 9, 2005, the Sudanese authorities sign a peace agreement with the southern rebels, after decades of civil war (1959-1972 and 1983-2005) that left millions dead.
On July 9, 2011, South Sudan proclaimed its independence, six months after the inhabitants voted in a referendum in favor of secession.
The enclave country borders Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic.
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With an area of 589,745 km2, it covers almost a quarter of the former Sudan. North and South continue to dispute the oil-rich province of Abyei. South Sudan is majority Christian.
Humanitarian crisis and civil war
Two years after its independence, South Sudan was plunged into a civil war that left nearly 400,000 dead and millions displaced.
Fighting broke out in the capital, Juba, on December 15, 2013, between rival army units over political-ethnic differences. The conflict officially ended with a peace agreement in September 2018, but tensions persist.
Most of the population lives in poverty.. Since 2013, 4.5 million people have had to leave their homes, according to the UN, due to violence, droughts and floods.
In 2017, famine was declared in two counties. Around a million people have been affected by the floods since July 2022, according to the UN.
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In the first half of 2023, more than 7.7 million people could suffer from acute food insecurity, a record, warned three UN agencies (FAO, Unicef and WFP).
The country occupies the last position (191) in the Human Development Index (IDH) of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). South Sudan has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world (35% in 2018, according to the World Bank).
Oil dependent economy
The South Sudanese economy, based on oil and agriculture, suffers the impacts of climatic turbulenceoil markets and conflicts.
Growth, weighed down lately by floods, locusts and the covid-19 pandemic, “should rebound to the […] 6.5% in 2023 thanks to the rise in oil export earnings,” said the African Development Bank (ADB).
The oil sector is responsible for almost all exports and the
90% of national income, according to the World Bank, but a good part of these are diverted.
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According to the NGO Transparency International, South Sudan is the country in the world most affected by corruption. The economy is also suffering from runaway inflation.
unexplored biodiversity
South Sudan is home to a variety of wildlife (antelopes, elephants, buffaloes and the very rare Nubian giraffes), battered by civil war and poaching, but could help boost tourism.
The country has the largest savannah ecosystem in East Africawhich favors one of the most important seasonal migrations of animals in the world.
In the Southern Marshes, the largest swampy area in the world (57,000 km2), innumerable birds live among immense expanses of papyrus and aquatic plants.
Santiago Andres Venera Salazar
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
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