Sawt Falasteen - Pope Leo blasts 'exploitation' on visit to resource-rich Angola

The American pope, on the eighth day of his trip to four African nations, visited Saurimo, some 800 kilometres (500 miles) east of the capital, Luanda.

Under tropical heat and heavy security, Leo drove through the city of around 200,000 people along a route lined by hundreds of singing and cheering locals dressed in colourful outfits and waving white scarves.

Saurimo is the capital of the historically marginalised Lunda Sul province and close to Angola's largest diamond mine, Catoca, which extracts around 75 percent of the country's diamonds.

The Portuguese-speaking country is one of Africa's top producers of crude oil and diamonds, yet around a third of its people live below the World Bank poverty line.

"We can see today how the hope of many people is frustrated by violence, exploited by the powerful and defrauded by the rich," the pope said in Portuguese at a giant open-air Mass.

"Consequently, when injustice corrupts hearts, the bread of all becomes the possession of a few."

Authorities estimated that about 40,000 people attended the mass with another 20,000 taking part from surrounding areas.

The pope also criticised tyranny and exploitation in the first two legs of his marathon Africa journey, in Algeria and Cameroon, showing a tougher tone from a previously more reserved style.

- Meeting the elderly -

Soon after landing in Saurimo earlier Monday, the pope was welcomed at a home for around 60 elderly people who are either abandoned by their families or victims of violence.

"Your presence in this home is a blessing from God," 72-year-old Antonio Joaquin told him.

Despite its mineral wealth, Lunda Sul province bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo suffers extreme poverty, with mining also blamed for environmental damage and displacing communities.

On the first day of his Angola stopover on Saturday, the pope spoke out against the harm caused by the rampant exploitation of the continent's natural resources.

"How much suffering, how many deaths, how many social and environmental disasters are caused by this logic of exploitation," he said in an address to government officials including President Joao Lourenco.

Back in Luanda on Monday, the pope will meet clergy to discuss challenges facing the church in Angola, including a lack of resources and the growing influence of evangelicism.

After John Paul II in 1992 and Benedict XVI in 2009, Leo is the third pope to visit this country, which was badly battered in a 27-year civil war that erupted after independence from Portugal in 1975.

At a Mass Sunday attended by 100,000 people, the 70-year-old pontiff called for Angola to overcome divisions of the past and create a future where "the scourge of corruption will be healed by a new culture of justice and sharing".

Some 44 percent of the population, about 15 million Angolans, identify as Catholic, according to a 2024 census in this southern African country.

On Tuesday, the pope is due to travel to Equatorial Guinea to wrap up an 18,000‑km journey across Africa over 11 days.

M.Qasim--SF-PST