Pope Leo XIV
Thousands of people, singing and dancing, welcomed Pope Leo XIV to Cameroon on Wednesday for a three-day trip that includes a visit to the epicentre of a nearly decade-long separatist conflict, where he is expected to bring a message of peace.
After two days in Algeria marred by two suicide attacks and a spat with US President Donald Trump, the pontiff’s plane landed in the Cameroonian capital Yaounde shortly before 3:00 pm local time (1400 GMT), an AFP journalist travelling on the papal plane said.
The US-born pope is later due to meet President Paul Biya, who has ruled the mainly French-speaking country since 1982.
Thousands of people, some of them playing music and dancing, gathered in the sunshine outside the airport to welcome his arrival.
“We hope that as soon as he sets foot on Cameroonian soil, the war will stop,” Benedicte Belinka, dressed in a tunic bearing the pope’s image, told AFP.
In the central African country where more than a third of the around 30 million people are Catholic, the Church plays a key mediation role and runs a large network of hospitals, schools and charities.
Posters, banners and flags festooned the city in honour of the pope’s visit, the fourth by a pope and the first since Pope Benedict XVI came in 2009.
Leo’s meeting with 93-year-old Biya, the world’s oldest head of state, has divided Catholics in the central African country.
Clergy members have voiced fears that it will help Biya to burnish his image, six months after violently suppressed protests against his disputed re-election to an eighth term.
The 70-year-old pope will later visit a Catholic orphanage and hold a private meeting with Cameroonian bishops.
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