JUBA JULY 22, 2016(CISA) – Pope Francis has sent an envoy, Cardinal Peter Turkson, to South Sudan for peace-building against the civil war that has been going on in the recent past in the country.
The president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace took with him a letter from the Pope for President Salva Kiir and one for Vice President Riek Machar who are the protagonists in the ongoing conflict and represent the different ethnic groups.
According to Vatican Radio, Turkson travelled to the capital Juba Sunday July 17 to give support to the Archbishop Paulino Lukudu and to meet with the country’s leaders.
“I was in Juba South Sudan last Sunday early enough to celebrate Mass with the faithful, the Archbishop, the priests and the religious. The situation to put it mildly is tough,” said Cardinal Turkson on the situation he found in Juba.
“Its conflict that breaks up among the military forces and always with a lot of deaths and the result is always that there is spill over in terms of the civilian population who are scared and leave their homes and are looted when they try to get back sometime they find somebody has lived in the home,” the cardinal noted.
He also observed that a lot of the women and children and even boys have sought refuge in Churches and in schools and that is where they live and the priests, brothers and nuns are trying to take care of them as best as they can.
Cardinal Turkson expressed hope that upon his return to Rome later this week it will be possible to send some concrete aid back to the archbishop as a help from the side of the Holy See.
