Pope Francis starts a trip on Tuesday to two fragile African nations often forgotten by the world, where protracted conflicts have left millions of refugees and displaced people grappling with hunger.
The Jan. 31-Feb 5 visit to Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, takes the 86-year-old pope to places where Catholics make up about half of the populations and where the Church is a key player in health and educational systems as well as in democracy-building efforts.
DRC, which is the second-largest country in Africa and has a population of about 90 million, is getting its first visit by a pope since John Paul II travelled there in 1985, when it was known as Zaire. "Congo is a moral emergency that cannot be ignored," the Vatican's ambassador to DRC, Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, told Reuters.
They represent the Christian make-up of the world's youngest country, which gained independence in 2011 from predominantly Muslim Sudan after decades of conflict and has a population of around 11 million.
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