- In 2015, he visited Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic while in 2017 he visited Egypt.
- It will be the Pope’s first visit to the country since 1985 when John Paul II travelled to the nation then referred to as Zaire.
Image: Courtsey
Pope Francis left Vatican Tuesday morning for the start of his six-day tour to the fragile African nations of DR Congo and South Sudan.
The Pope will be spreading the message of reconciliation and hope while on his tour.
The 40th journey by the Pope begins in DRC on Tuesday until February 3 where he is set to depart for South Sudan.
In a letter addressed to the populations of both countries prior to his departure, Pope Francis noted the DRC “suffers from armed clashes and exploitation especially in the east of the country".
He also said that South Sudan, has been “wracked by years of war” and "longs for an end to the constant violence that forces many people to be displaced and to live in conditions of great hardship."
It is his 5th Apostolic Journey to Africa.
In 2015, he visited Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic while in 2017 he visited Egypt.
In March 2019, he made a Journey to Morocco, and later to Mozambique, Madagascar and Mauritius in September 2019.
Congo is the home to the largest Roman Catholics in Africa, an approximate half of the close to 200 million population.
It will be the Pope’s first visit to the country since 1985 when John Paul II travelled to the nation then referred to as Zaire.
"Congo is a moral emergency that cannot be ignored,” the Vatican's ambassador to DRC, Archbishop Ettore Balestrero told Reuters.
The trip according to Vatican news was scheduled to happen in July last year, but was postponed after he suffered a flare-up of a chronic knee ailment.
The Pope will stay in the capital, Kinshasa, but will meet there with victims of violence from the east.
The visit by the Pope to Goma in Eastern Congo has been scrapped by the organizers following the resurgence of fighting between the Congolese army and the M23 rebel group in 2021.
In the fights Italy's ambassador, his bodyguard and driver were killed in an ambush.
Image: Courtsey
Vatican also reported that, the Pope met with about ten migrants and refugees from the DRC and South Sudan.
They are supported, along with their families, by the Jesuit-run Centro Astalli in Rome before leaving his residence Casa Santa Marta.
Upon arriving at the airport, the Pope's car, Vatican said, was stopped briefly near the Monument to the Fallen of Kindu, as the 13 Italian airmen killed in Congo on 11 November 1961 are known.
The Holy Father dedicated a prayer to the victims of that massacre and to all those who lost their lives participating in humanitarian and peace missions, before proceeding toward the papal plane.
In DRC, he will be received by President Felix Tshisekedi.
Billboards had already been mounted along the major highways of many Kinshasa welcoming the pope with the locals hoping the visit will help resolve differences and heal.