Pope urges peace amid tight security for first visit to a war zone

Protected by the heaviest security ever seen on his trips, Pope Francis yesterday preached reconciliation in the divided Central African Republic, a nation racked by bloodshed between Muslims and Christians.

As the pope's Alitalia aircraft touched down from Uganda to start his first visit to a war zone, attack helicopters patrolled the skies and armoured personnel carriers from French and UN peacekeeping forces waited outside the airport.

A surge in clashes in Bangui, the capital of the former French colony, have left at least 100 people dead since late September.

France, which has about 900 soldiers deployed in the country, warned the Vatican this month the visit could be risky, but the pope was determined to go to the majority Christian nation.

“Reconciliation, forgiveness, love, peace,” he said in the homily of a Mass at the city’s cathedral in the afternoon, appealing to warring militias to “lay down these instruments of death”.

Tolerance

The pope was driven past tens of thousands of cheering people to and from events in a simple car or an open popemobile. “Work, pray, do everything for peace. But remember, peace without love, friendship and tolerance is nothing,” he said at one stop, a visit to a camp housing 4,000 people displaced by the violence in Bangui’s neighbourhoods.

He was mobbed by the crowd and asked them all to shout out repeatedly in their native Songo language: “We are all brothers.”

The tight security continued in the afternoon when he opened a “holy door” at the city’s cathedral for a symbolic local start of the Roman Catholic Church’s jubilee year on the theme of mercy. The jubilee begins officially at the Vatican on December 8th.

“The Holy Year of Mercy is coming early to this land that has been suffering for years from hate, incomprehension and lack of peace,” he said.

France sent soldiers in 2013 in an attempt to stem the violence. Muslims and Christians have since split into segregated communities. Tens of thousands of Muslims have fled to the far north, creating a de facto partition. About 80 per cent of the impoverished country’s population is Christian, about 15 per cent is Muslim and 5 per cent animist.

The most dangerous segment of the pope’s African trip takes place today when he enters Bangui’s PK5 Muslim enclave and visits its central mosque. – (Reuters)