Pope Francis offers 'wings to your hope' to displaced children in South Sudan

Pope Francis leads an ecumenical prayer at the John Garang Mausoleum during his apostolic journey, in Juba, South Sudan, February 4, 2023. Vatican Media/Handout via REUTERS

The three men led about 50,000 people in an open-air ecumenical prayer vigil at dusk at a mausoleum for South Sudan's liberation hero John Garang, who died in a helicopter crash in 2005 before the country gained independence. "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.

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

"Although conflict, violence and hatred have replaced good memories on the first pages of the life of this republic, you must be the ones to rewrite its history as a history of peace!" he said. "You will not be deceived into war. You will not be forced to kill. You will disagree with others, but still love them," he said.

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