Pope and archbishop on historic peace mission to South Sudan

Credit: AFP

There has never been a visit like it and it has been years in the planning. A Pope and an Archbishop of Canterbury make a foreign trip together for the first time in history, joined by the most senior figure in the Church of Scotland as reported by Aleem Maqbool & Nichola Mandil for the BBC

"This will be a historic visit. After centuries of division, leaders of three different parts of the Church are coming together in an unprecedented way," says the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.

Their mission is to bring hope and to encourage leaders to find a lasting peace in South Sudan

"We pray that this visit will be a catalyst for the leaders of South Sudan to focus on what unites them and not what divides them for they are all loved equally in the eyes of the Lord," says Rev Iain Greenshields, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

But this trip comes at a time when the country is suffering severe political instability, its people facing crushing poverty, and many observers are viewing the outlook as bleak.

The youngest nation of the world has been ravaged by a bloody civil war since its leaders disagreed over control of the oil-rich country in 2013, just two years after its independence from Sudan.

More than 400,000 people are thought to have died as a result of the conflict and though a peace deal in 2018 created a unity government, some of its key provisions have not been implemented.

More than 60% of the population of South Sudan is estimated to be Christian, mainly belonging to Catholic, Anglican and Presbyterian traditions, though the war has been fought along ethnic and not religious lines.

The battle for control mainly raged between the supporters of President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and supporters of the First Vice-President Riek Machar, a Nuer.

Read more