‘No More Bloodshed &Conflicts’! Pope Implores South Sudan’s Leaders To Work Together For Peace

Pope Francis began his visit to South Sudan on Friday with an impassioned plea to its fractious leaders to turn their backs on the violence, ethnic hatred and corruption that have stopped the world’s youngest country from achieving peace and prosperity.

Tens of thousands of people sang, drummed and ululated as the Roman Catholic leader arrived in the capital Juba on Friday for an unprecedented joint “pilgrimage of peace” with his Anglican and Scottish Presbyterian counterparts.

“I beg you, with all my heart, to accept four simple words: not my words, but those of Christ … ‘No more of this!'” the pope said in his first address, in front of an audience that included President Salva Kiir and other government figures.

“No more bloodshed, no more conflicts, no more violence and mutual recriminations about who is responsible for it,” he said.

On the eve of the pope’s arrival, 27 people were killed in Central Equatoria state, where Juba is located, in tit-for-tat violence between cattle herders and a local militia.

 Meanwhile, Pope Francis also said Churches in South Sudan “cannot remain neutral” but must raise their voices against injustice and abuse of power, as he and two other Christian leaders conducted a peace mission to the world’s newest country.

On his first full day in South Sudan, Francis addressed Catholic bishops, priests and nuns in the cathedral of St. Therese in the capital Juba as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the head of the Church of Scotland held services elsewhere.

South Sudan broke away from Sudan in 2011 but plunged into civil war in 2013 with ethnic groups turning on each other. Despite a 2018 peace deal between the two main antagonists, bouts of inter-ethnic fighting have continued to kill and displace large numbers of civilians.

“Brothers and sisters, we too are called to intercede for our people, to raise our voices against the injustice and the abuses of power that oppress and use violence to suit their own ends,” Francis said, adding that religious leaders “cannot remain neutral before the pain caused by acts of injustice”.

There are 2.2 million internally displaced people in South Sudan, out of a total population of about 11.6 million, and another 2.3 million have fled the country as refugees, according to the United Nations.

Extreme poverty and hunger are rife, with two-thirds of the population needing humanitarian assistance as a result of conflict as well as three years of catastrophic floods.

At the cathedral, Francis heard a nun tell of how two of her fellow sisters were killed in an ambush near Juba in 2021.

“Let us ask ourselves what it means for us to be ministers of God in a land scarred by war, hatred, violence, and poverty,” Francis said, and later led prayers for them.

“How can we exercise our ministry in this land, along the banks of a river bathed in so much innocent blood?” he asked, referring to the White Nile that runs through the country.

The three Christian leaders, on an unprecedented “pilgrimage of peace”, will later take part in an open-air ecumenical prayer vigil at a mausoleum for South Sudan’s liberation hero John Garang, with 50,000 people expected to attend.

The joint visit is the first of its kind in Christian history.

South Sudan is predominantly Christian and tens of thousands of people lined the streets of the capital Juba to welcome the pope with singing, drumming and ululations on Friday when he arrived from a visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In a strongly worded speech to South Sudan’s leaders including its previously warring President Salva Kiir and Vice-President Riek Machar, Francis implored them to renounce violence, ethnic hatred and corruption.

In his own speech, Kiir said his government was firmly committed to consolidating peace in South Sudan.