Pope Francis wraps up an emotional visit to Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday and heads to neighboring South Sudan, another nation struggling to overcome decades of conflict and grinding poverty
driven in part by the struggle for control of deposits of diamonds, gold and other precious metals between the government, rebels and foreign invaders. The spillover and long fallout from neighbouring Rwanda's 1994 genocide have also fuelled violence., saying the Congolese people and the wider world should realise that people were more precious than the minerals in the earth beneath them.
The pope will be joined for the whole of his visit to South Sudan by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, leader of the global Anglican Communion, and by the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Iain Greenshields. South Sudan broke away from Sudan to become independent in 2011 after decades of north-south conflict, but civil war erupted in 2013. Despite a 2018 peace deal between the two main antagonists, violence and hunger still plague the country.
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