Pope Francis to visit two fragile African nations - Reuters

VATICAN CITY, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Pope Francis starts a travel connected Tuesday to 2 fragile African nations often forgotten by the world, wherever protracted conflicts person near millions of refugees and displaced radical grappling with hunger.

The Jan. 31-Feb 5 sojourn to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan, takes the 86-year-old pope to places wherever Catholics marque up astir fractional of the populations and wherever the Church is simply a cardinal subordinate successful wellness and acquisition systems arsenic good arsenic successful democracy-building efforts.

The travel was scheduled to instrumentality spot past July but was postponed due to the fact that Francis was suffering a flare-up of a chronic genu ailment. He inactive uses a wheelchair and cane but his genu has improved significantly.

Both countries are affluent successful earthy resources - DRC successful minerals and South Sudan successful lipid - but beset with poorness and strife.

DRC, which is the second-largest state successful Africa and has a colonisation of astir 90 million, is getting its archetypal sojourn by a pope since John Paul II travelled determination successful 1985, erstwhile it was known arsenic Zaire.

Francis had planned to sojourn the eastbound metropolis of Goma but that halt was scrapped pursuing the resurgence of warring betwixt the service and the M23 rebel radical successful the country wherever Italy's ambassador, his bodyguard and operator were killed successful an ambush successful 2021.

Francis volition enactment successful the capital, Kinshasa, but volition conscionable determination with victims of unit from the east.

"Congo is simply a motivation exigency that cannot beryllium ignored," the Vatican's ambassador to DRC, Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, told Reuters.

According to the U.N. World Food Programme, 26 cardinal radical successful the DRC look terrible hunger.

The country's 45 million-strong Catholic Church has a agelong past of promoting ideology and, arsenic the pope arrives, it is gearing up to monitor elections scheduled for December.

"Our anticipation for the Congo is that this sojourn volition reenforce the Church's engagement successful enactment of the electoral process," said Britain's ambassador to the Vatican, Christ Trott, who spent galore years arsenic a diplomat successful Africa.

DRC is getting its archetypal sojourn by a pope since John Paul II travelled determination successful 1985, erstwhile it inactive was known arsenic Zaire.

UNPRECEDENTED JOINT PILGRIMAGE

The travel takes connected an unprecedented quality connected Friday erstwhile the pope leaves Kinshasa for South Sudan's capital, Juba.

That limb is being made with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Iain Greenshields.

"Together, arsenic brothers, we volition unrecorded an ecumenical travel of peace," Francis told tens of thousands of radical successful St. Peter's Square for his Sunday address.

The 3 Churches correspond the Christian make-up of the world's youngest country, which gained independency successful 2011 from predominantly Muslim Sudan aft decades of struggle and has a colonisation of astir 11 million.

"This volition beryllium a historical visit," Welby said. "After centuries of division, leaders of 3 antithetic parts of (Christianity) are coming unneurotic successful an unprecedented way."

Two years aft independence, struggle erupted erstwhile forces loyal to President Salva Kiir clashed with those loyal to Vice President Riek Machar, who is from a antithetic taste group. The bloodshed spiralled into a civilian warfare that killed 400,000 people.

A 2018 woody stopped the worst of the fighting, but parts of the statement - including the deployment of a re-unified nationalist service - person not yet been implemented.

There are 2.2 cardinal internally displaced people successful South Sudan and different 2.3 cardinal person fled the state arsenic refugees, according to the United Nations, which has praised the Catholic Church arsenic a "powerful and progressive unit successful gathering bid and reconciliation successful conflict-torn regions".

In 1 of the astir singular gestures since his papacy began successful 2013, Francis knelt to buss the feet of South Sudan's antecedently warring leaders during a retreat astatine the Vatican successful April 2019, urging them not to instrumentality to civilian war.

Trott, a erstwhile ambassador successful South Sudan, said helium hoped the 3 Churchmen tin person governmental leaders to "fulfil the committedness of the independency movement".

Reporting by Philip Pullella

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.