JUBA, South Sudan (AFP) — Pope Francis, on a novel ecumenical peace mission to the world’s youngest country, warned’s South Sudan political leaders on Friday that history will judge them harshly if they continue to drag their feet implementing a 2018 peace accord.
Greeted by songs and high-pitched cries, Francis called on the hundreds of people gathered in his Hall of Freedom to be the “seeds of hope” that would soon bear fruit for a nation of 12 million.
“You will be a tree that will absorb the contamination of years of violence and restore the oxygen of brotherhood,” he said.
The head of the UN mission in South Sudan, Sara Beysorrow Nyanti, told Francis that women and girls were “extremely vulnerable” to sexual and gender-based violence. of attack. She said women and girls were at risk of rape just by being outside for their daily routines and household chores.
“South Sudan will change if South Sudanese women are given the opportunity to grow and given the space to be productive,” she told Francis. Pope Francis addressed her theme, saying women are key to the peaceful development of South Sudan.
“Protect, respect, appreciate and respect all women, girls, young women, mothers and grandmothers,” he said. “Otherwise there is no future”
According to UNICEF, about 75% of girls in South Sudan are out of school. Because their parents want them to stay home and get ready for a marriage that will bring the family a dowry.
Half of South Sudan’s women are married before the age of 18, after which they face one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. South Sudan’s United Nations Human Rights Commission said in a report last year that women and girls here were sending “a hellish existence” across the board.
“Women in South Sudan have been physically assaulted while being raped at gunpoint and usually held down by men while being abused by others. They are told not to fight and report what happened or they will be killed,” the report said.
Maria Nyataba Ulu, a displaced person now living in Juba, attended Francis’ event but was left limping for days after one of her neighbors was brutally raped in front of her children.
Francis started the day by meeting the priests and nuns who serve the people of South Sudan and urging them to join the flock to join their suffering.
At St. Teresa’s Cathedral, he heard about the victims the nuns had sacrificed over the years. Among them was the ambush killing of Sisters of the 2021 Sacred Heart Sisters Congregation, Mary Daniel Abbatt and Regina Loba on her Ruate.
Sister Regina Achan, from the same congregation, said Francis’ visit will encourage other sisters to continue serving the people of South Sudan. “We stand by them because we are their voice. We do not run away in difficult times,” said Achan.
Sister Aura Her Tracy is an Irish Loreto nun who runs an all-girls secondary school in downtown Rumbek, where she walked her students for over a week to see the Pope in Juba. The school makes a deal with the girls’ extended families in which the relatives agree not to take the girls out of school and marry them.
