Hundreds of thousands fled a grisly civil conflict years ago to settle in Sudan, to the north. With war now raging there, they are streaming home to a country ill-prepared to take them back.
In an in-flight news conference after six days in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, Francis also denounced conservative critics who he said had “instrumentalized” the death of Benedict XVI.
Pope Francis ended his trip to Africa on Saturday by meeting with displaced people and urging his clergy not to “remain neutral before the pain caused by acts of injustice and violence.”
The soaring hopes at South Sudan’s creation in 2011 have been cruelly dashed. Pope Francis arrives there with other religious leaders on Friday to highlight its plight.