Pope arrives in DR Congo on ‘beautiful journey’ to Africa

Large crowds of well-wishers gathered at Kinshasa’s Ndjili airport, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) from downtown, to greet the Argentine pope, whose plane landed at 2:35 p.m. local time (1:45 p.m. GMT).

“We’ve been waiting for a year, it’s been a wonderful journey,” the 86-year-old pope told reporters traveling aboard his plane.

It is the first time since 1985 that a pope has visited the Democratic Republic of Congo, a desperately poor country of about 100 million people, 40 percent of whom are Catholics.

“I didn’t want to miss the chance to see him in person,” Maggie Kayembe, a woman in her 30s, told AFP as she waited for the pope. “He always preaches peace wherever he goes, and peace, we really need it,” she added.

The six-day trip to the DRC and South Sudan was scheduled for July 2022, but was postponed due to the pope’s knee pain that has forced him to use a wheelchair in recent months.

He boarded the plane in Rome via an elevator.

Security considerations would also play a role in postponing the trip, and a stop in Goma in eastern DR Congo, where dozens of armed groups are active, is no longer on the agenda.

“I would have liked to go to Goma too, but with the war you can’t go there,” the pope told reporters on the plane.

On Sunday he had offered his greetings “with affection to those dear peoples who await me”.

“These countries, located in the center of the great African continent, have suffered greatly from long-standing conflicts,” he said after his Angelus prayer at the Vatican.

He lamented “armed clashes and exploitation” in DR Congo, saying South Sudan, “torn by years of war, longs for an end to the ongoing violence”.

As the papal plane flew over the Sahara, the pope offered a prayer for “all the people who, in search of a little well-being, a little freedom, crossed (the desert) and didn’t make it.”

He recalled how many people arrive in North Africa hoping to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, only to be “taken to camps and suffer. Let’s pray for all those people.”

– Victims of violence –

Despite its vast mineral wealth, about two-thirds of the DRC’s population lives on less than $2.15 a day as violence ravages the eastern provinces.

The Tutsi-led armed group M23, which Kinshasa says is supported by neighboring Rwanda, has seized large swaths of territory in North Kivu province.

The region has also seen a spate of deadly attacks blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a group the Islamic State claims to be affiliated with, including a bombing of a Pentecostal church this month that killed 14 people.

After a welcome ceremony at Kinshasa airport, Francis is received at the Presidential Palace by President Felix Tshisekedi.

The pope will then deliver his first of a dozen speeches during the trip, addressing authorities, the diplomatic corps and representatives of civil society.

“He can send a strong message to politicians by tackling the problem of corruption,” ahead of general elections scheduled for December, said Samuel Pommeret of the Catholic humanitarian group CCFD-Terre Solidaire, which operates in the area.

Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend a prayer vigil Tuesday evening at N’dolo airport ahead of a Wednesday morning mass expected to draw more than a million worshippers.

Papal memorabilia was already selling well in Kinshasa ahead of the visit, with Elisabeth Akwete, 66, among those who bought a calendar featuring Francis.

“It is a pleasure to have the image of the head of the church in the house,” she told AFP.

During his visit to the DRC, the pope will also meet victims of violence, as well as members of the clergy and charities active in the country.

– Pilgrimage of Peace –

On Friday, Francis will travel to Juba, the capital of South Sudan, also one of the world’s poorest countries, which has lurched from one crisis to another since independence in 2011.

It suffered a brutal five-year civil war, as ongoing conflicts between rival ethnic groups take a terrible toll on civilians.

The pope will be joined in Juba by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the leader of the Church of Scotland on what he has called “an ecumenical pilgrimage to peace”.

AFP