Vatican spokesman says South Sudan will need world’s solidarity
(July 08, 2011) It is hoped that the war is truly over and that the new Republic
of South Sudan, as desired by an overwhelming majority of its inhabitants, can start
a new history in peace,” said the Holy See’s spokesman on the eve of the birth of
the world’s newest state. Commenting in his weekly television programme’ Octava Dies’,
Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi said that representatives of Pope Benedict XVI will join
the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, many heads of state and bishops
from several countries in Juba, South Sudan, on Saturday, July 9, for the proclamation
of the independence of South Sudan. Southerners voted to secede from the Arab-dominated
north in a January referendum that was promised in a 2005 peace deal ending 5 decades
of north-south civil war that cost two million lives. The Vatican spokesman said
that it will be one of the poorest countries in the world, and it will have to face
very difficult problems regarding its internal unity, but its people hope – and together
with them we also hope – to be able to build a future of freedom and peace. He recalled
Blessed John Paul II’s visit to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on February 10, 1993,
when the Pope expressed his closeness with the suffering people of the south displaced
by war, and prayed that their freedom, fundamental human rights and human dignity
be respected. Fr. Lombardi noted that the mysterious and extraordinary vitality of
the Sudanese people witnessed around Pope John Paul 18 years ago hasn’t died down,
but now needs the concrete and strong solidarity of the international community and
of the Church in order to flourish.