Pope Urges End To Ethnic Hatred In Historic South Sudan Visit

Aboard the Papal Plane, Feb 5 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 6th Feb, 2023 ) :Pope Francis flew home Sunday with the leaders of the Anglican and Scottish churches after a joint trip to violence-plagued South Sudan, where he appealed at a final mass for people to lay down their "weapons of hatred".

Large crowds of ecstatic worshippers had gathered in the capital Juba to see the 86-year-old pontiff, who made peace and reconciliation the theme of his three-day trip to the world's newest nation.

"Let us lay down the weapons of hatred and revenge... Let us overcome the dislikes and aversions that over time have become chronic and risk pitting tribes and ethnic groups against one another," Francis said in his homily.

Addressing a crowd local authorities estimated at around 70,000, he voiced hope that the people of South Sudan would "build a reconciled future".

It was the first papal visit to the largely Christian country, which achieved independence from mainly Muslim Sudan in 2011 after a long and bloody civil war.

Two years later, South Sudan was at war with itself, a conflict that killed nearly 400,000 people and displaced four million.

A peace deal was signed in 2018 between President Salva Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar but many of its conditions remain unmet and violence continues to roil the country.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who joined Francis on the trip alongside the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, said the visit left him with a "deep sense of encouragement".

"What we now need is a serious change of heart from the leadership. They have to agree to a process that will lead to a peaceful transition of power," Welby told reporters on the plane taking the three religious leaders back to Rome.

"There has to be an end to corruption and gun smuggling and the amassing of huge quantities of weapons," he said.