Staff Reporter.
Pope Francis has met South Sudanese children displaced by conflict and heard of the hardships of their lives in camps, telling them they would build a better future for the world’s newest country by replacing ethnic hatred with forgiveness.
The pope was visiting South Sudan with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Church of Scotland Moderator Iain Greenshields – an unprecedented joint “pilgrimage of peace”.
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.
At a meeting in the capital Juba, the Christian leaders listened to testimonies from displaced children including Johnson Juma Alex, 14, who has been living in a camp since 2014 after fleeing his hometown because of fighting.
“Life in the camp is not good because the area is small and crowded, “he told them, reading haltingly from a prepared text in English, which is not his native language.
“There is not enough space to play football. Many children do not go to school because there are not enough teachers and schools for all of us,” he said.
“The future cannot lie in refugee camps, “the pope told the children after hearing their stories at the event, which was held in a prefabricated structure holding about 2,500 people.
“As you said, Johnson, there is a need for all children like yourself to have the opportunity to go to school – and to have a field to play football!”
Francis said hope for South Sudan’s future rests in children from different ethnic groups, who have suffered and are still suffering, yet who do not want to respond to evil with more evil.
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.