Niger’s outgoing president wins coveted Mo Ibrahim prize

8, March 2021

Niger’s outgoing president wins coveted Mo Ibrahim prize 0

Mahamadou Issoufou, who is stepping down as president of coup-prone Niger after two terms in office, on Monday won Africa’s top prize for leadership.

He was awarded the 2020 Mo Ibrahim Prize for facing “seemingly insurmountable challenges”, ranging from deep poverty to jihadism and desertification.

Despite these enduring problems, “Issoufou has led his people on a path of progress”, said a statement by award committee chairman Festus Mogae, who is also former president of Botswana.

“Today, the number of Nigeriens living below the poverty line has fallen to 40 percent, from 48 percent a decade ago,” the statement said.

“While challenges remain, Issoufou has kept his promises to the Nigerien people and paved the way for a better future.”

Issoufou, 68, is stepping down next month after 10 years in office.

His decision to quit after two terms has enabled Niger to have the first democratic transition between elected leaders since it became independent from France more than 60 years ago.

The handover has been contrasted with that of other countries in West Africa, where presidents have overseen constitutional changes enabling them to extend their time in office — often at the cost of violent protests.

Issoufou’s preferred successor and right-hand man, Mohamed Bazoum, won last month’s runoff, although the results were contested by the opposition and violence in the capital Niamey claimed two lives.

The Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership is based on principles of sound government, respect for term limits and democratic elections.

It has been handed out by a foundation, set up by British-Sudanese telecoms tycoon Mo Ibrahim, since 2007.

Issoufou is the sixth recipient — the prize has not been awarded in some years because of a lack of a suitable winner.

Past winners include former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and South African apartheid fighter and former president Nelson Mandela, both of whom were also Nobel Peace laureates.

Winners receive $5 million spread over 10 years, and then a life endowment of $200,000 for the rest of their lives.

In a statement on Twitter, Issoufou thanked the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, and said he considered the award an “encouragement to continue to think and act to promote democratic values and good governance, not only in Niger but also in Africa and throughout the world”.

Niger is the world’s poorest nation, according to the UN’s benchmark of human development, and is struggling with soaring population growth.

It is also fighting two jihadist insurgencies that have forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.

Source: AFP

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Canadian House of Commons weighs in, says there is no end to hostilities in sight.”

8, March 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Canadian House of Commons weighs in, says there is no end to hostilities in sight.” 0

On 16 February 2021, the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development (the Subcommittee) heard from witnesses who gave members an update on the conflict between the Government of Cameroon and the English speaking regions of the Republic of Cameroon that has been escalating since 2016.

The Subcommittee last held a meeting on this topic on 13 June 2019. Its subsequent news release shed light on a host of human rights violations in the country perpetrated by the Cameroonian government. The Subcommittee concluded that since the root causes of the crisis continue to be ignored, “there is no end to hostilities in sight.”

Tragically, the situation in Cameroon has not improved. As summarized by one witness:

In the northwest and southwest regions, it is nothing short of an atrocity situation, consisting of widespread and systematic crimes against humanity against the civilian population and serious violations of international humanitarian law or the laws of war against civilians as protected persons, amounting to war crimes.

Witnesses, including an academic and people with regional experience, shared horrific stories of mass killings, forced disappearances, torture, burning and the worst forms of sexual violence. Since 2017, more than 700,000 civilians have been forcibly displaced from their homes, with over 60,000 refugees fleeing to neighbouring Nigeria.

The Subcommittee is particularly worried about the impact of this conflict on children in primarily English-speaking regions of the country. Not only are they witnessing the violence, but they are subject to it and concerns were raised that they are being recruited as child soldiers. Witnesses reported that between 800,000 and 1.1 million children have been out of school since 2017.

Witnesses lamented the fact that this is a neglected crisis. The international community cannot continue to stand idly by while atrocities in Cameroon continue unabated. The Subcommittee shares the view of witnesses that the situation needs urgent attention – with no end to the conflict in sight, Cameroon’s divisions are becoming increasingly entrenched.

The Subcommittee agrees with witnesses that, as a member the Commonwealth of Nations and the Francophonie alongside Cameroon, Canada could play a stronger role in helping to end this crisis. As such, the Subcommittee shares the view that the Government of Canada should rally allies through multilateral organizations to call for an immediate ceasefire and end to hostilities. It should mount an international campaign pressuring the Government of Cameroon to allow the establishment of an independent fact-finding commission of inquiry to investigate the conflict, including the atrocities and its root causes. The Government of Canada should also consider, alongside international allies, sanctioning those responsible for atrocities and severe human rights violations through the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law).

Making of Obiang Nguema II: Series of explosions hits military barracks in Equatorial Guinea

7, March 2021

Making of Obiang Nguema II: Series of explosions hits military barracks in Equatorial Guinea 0

A series of explosions at a military barracks in Equatorial Guinea killed at least 15 people and wounded hundreds of others, state television reported.

TGVE read out a statement from President Teodoro Obiang Nguema which said the explosion was due to the “negligent handling of dynamite” in the military barracks located in the neighborhood of Mondong Nkuantoma in Bata. He said that the explosion occurred at 4 p.m. local time. The president said that impact of the explosion affected buildings across the city.

TVGE said that at least five explosions caused at least 20 deaths and wounded more than 400 others.

There were some discrepancies with the death toll, with TGVE reporting 20 dead, a Health Ministry tweet saying 17 were killed and the president’s statement mentioning 15.

State television showed a huge plume of smoke rising above the explosion site as crowds fled, with many people crying out “we don’t know what happened, but it is all destroyed.”

The health ministry tweeted that its health workers are treating the injured at the site of the tragedy and in medical facilities, but feared people were still missing under the rubble.

Images on local media seen by The Associated Press show people screaming and crying running through the streets amid debris and smoke. Roofs of houses were ripped off and wounded people were being carried into a hospital.

The blasts were a shock for the oil rich Central African nation. A doctor calling into TVGE, who went by his first name, Florentino, said the situation was a “moment of crisis” and that the hospitals were overcrowded. He said a sports center set up for COVID-19 patients would be used to receive minor cases.

Radio station, Radio Macuto, said on Twitter that people were being evacuated within four kilometers of the city because the fumes might be harmful.

Following the blast, the Spanish Embassy in Equatorial Guinea recommended on Twitter that, “Spanish nationals stay in their homes.”

(AP)

France shifts policy on aid to Africa to counter rising Chinese influence

7, March 2021

France shifts policy on aid to Africa to counter rising Chinese influence 0

France is looking to reform its policy on aid to Africa – making it both more generous and more efficiently targeted – as part of a strategy to counter China’s rising geopolitical influence.

Africa’s booming economies and population have created lucrative opportunities for international players, making the continent a hotbed of geopolitical competition over the past decade. The International Monetary Fund found in 2019 that Africa had become the world’s fastest-growing region, with the World Economic Forum predicting its population would double to around 2.2 billion by 2050.

China is Africa’s biggest bilateral trading partner, having surpassed the US in 2009. Before the coronavirus crisis hit the world economy, the value of Sino-African trade reached €161 billion ($192 bn) in 2019.

“Right now you could say that any big project in African cities that is higher than three floors or roads that are longer than three kilometres are most likely being built and engineered by the Chinese,” Dave Roggeveen, the founder of specialist publication MORE Architecture, told Forbes in 2018.

As well as infrastructure, China has invested massively in media in Africa – with state-run Xinhua News Agency developing the continent’s biggest network of correspondents. Nairobi is at the centre of China’s African media presence, with Xinhua moving one of its headquarters from Paris to the Kenyan capital in 2006.

France is now also seeking to make new inroads on the African continent by tweaking its strategy towards developing nations. Paris has managed to increase its global aid budget even amid the coronavirus crisis, with development spending rising from €10.9 billion in 2019 to €12.8 billion in 2020.

On March 2, French MPs approved a bill increasing France’s aid budget to 0.55 percent of GDP by 2022. President Macron’s government is also stepping up efforts to ensure the aid money is effective. The draft law enshrines five key objectives – “to fight against poverty, to counter climate change, to bolster public health, to expand education services and to achieve gender equality” – focused on Sub-Saharan Africa and also Haiti.

“International solidarity has never been more necessary than it is now,” said Louis-Nicolas Jandeaux, a spokesman for Oxfam France. “The Covid-19 pandemic shows us how so many major challenges – like fighting poverty and protecting public health – are connected. Given that France is a leader on these multilateral issues, and given that French President Emmanuel Macron has spoken so much about boosting international co-operation, France really has to set a good example on issues like aid spending.”

The bill also seeks to give France more bang for its aid buck by merging its two development agencies. The French Development Agency – which bestows loans and grants – will be merged with France Expertise – which focuses on the nitty-gritty of development project logistics. This merger will allow French aid workers to “respond better and more directly to the needs of the countries we’re working in”, said Jérémie Pellet, director of France Expertise.

The law includes a plan to repatriate “ill-gotten” assets the French justice system has confiscated from foreign leaders. France has made efforts to go after corrupt politicians who have stashed millions on French soil. In 2020 a Paris court sentenced Teodorin Obiang, vice president of Equatorial Guinea, to three years in prison and a €30 million fine for laundering money through French properties.

Redirecting illicit money back to the people is also part of a diplomatic strategy to boost France’s image in Africa.

“This aspect seems so morally sound that it’s almost impossible to be against it,” said Magali Chelpi-den Hamer, the head of the humanitarian and development programme at Paris-based think-tank IRIS (the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs). “However, the volume of money concerned will be relatively low.” 

Avoiding the debt trap

France has had a long and complicated relationship with Africa. It gained control of vast swaths of the continent – mainly by seizing most of western Africa – in the competitive conquest of the continent launched by European powers from the 17th century.

After a wave of successful independence movements in the 1950s and 1960s, France maintained close relations with many Francophone ex-colonies in a policy that came to be known as Françafrique. Advocates of this approach saw France as a guarantor of stability on the continent, but critics saw France as loath to give up its colonial-era influence and continuing to play a clientelist role.   

The French state’s focus on Africa waned in the 1990s as it turned its attention toward European integration. But France has once again set its sights on the continent to counter China’s rising influence.

And this time France seeks to ensure that its activities on the continent do not carry any reminiscence of neo-colonialism, with a new aid policy favouring grants over loans.

Analysts have become increasingly concerned about China creating debt traps with its hefty loans to African countries, for which it is the biggest bilateral lender. Chinese loans to underdeveloped countries are even bigger than indicated by the official figures: around half of them are not reported to the International Monetary Fund or World Bank, a report for German think-tank the Kiel Institute for the World Economy found in 2019.

Until now, France has not had a stellar record on loans either: in 2018, half of its development aid was in loans instead of grants, according to Oxfam. Nevertheless, while “Western countries also use debt to gain influence in African countries, unlike China they’re very keen to avoid setting debt traps,” said IRIS’s Chelpi-den Hamer.

“We’re fighting China in a battle for influence – and a battle over what system of government countries should see as their model,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France Inter radio last month.

China’s increasing involvement in Africa threatens to “end up being negative over the medium to long term”, Macron warned at a press conference in Djibouti on his 2019 African tour.

“I wouldn’t want a new generation of international investments to encroach on our historical partners’ sovereignty or weaken their economies,” he added.

France’s aid reform bill now goes to the Senate and is expected to become law this summer.

Source: France 24

US: Senate passes Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 stimulus bill

7, March 2021

US: Senate passes Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 stimulus bill 0

The Senate on Saturday passed President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan in a party-line vote after an all-night session that saw Democrats battling among themselves over jobless aid and the Republican minority failing in attempts to push through some three dozen amendments.

The final bill includes $400 billion in one-time payments of $1,400 to most Americans, $300 a week in extended jobless benefits for the 9.5 million people thrown out of work in the crisis, and $350 billion in aid to state and local governments that have seen the pandemic blow a hole in their budgets.

The Senate voted 50-49, with no Republicans voting in favor, on what would be one of the largest stimulus packages in U.S. history.

Several Republicans left the chamber immediately after the vote, while Senator Bernie Sanders fist-bumped Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

The fight is not over as the bill needs to return to the House of Representatives, which approved a slightly different version a week earlier.

The standoff within the Democratic party over the jobless benefits and the all-night effort by Republicans to amend a bill that polls show is popular with voters illustrated the difficulty that Biden will face in pushing other policies through a Congress that Democrats control by the narrowest of majorities. The bill is a priority for Biden as the country battles a pandemic that has killed more than 520,000 Americans.

The chamber set a record in its longest single vote in the modern era — 11 hours and 50 minutes — as Democrats negotiated a compromise on unemployment benefits to satisfy centrists like Senator Joe Manchin, who often walks a delicate tightrope as a Democrat representing a state, West Virginia, that overwhelmingly supported Republican former President Donald Trump in the November election.

The extended unemployment payments, which are to be paid out on top of state jobless benefits, proved to be the most contentious part of the bill. The House bill had set the supplemental benefit at $400 a week, but Senate Democrats finally agreed to knock that down to $300.

The House bill also featured a measure to more than double the minimum wage to $15 per hour, which the Senate also rejected.

Moderate Democrats feared that the higher jobless benefits and minimum wage hike would overheat the economy and hurt businesses in rural states.

Senate Democrats used a process called reconciliation to pass the measure with a simple majority rather than the 60 of 100 votes normally required under the chamber’s rules.

It was unclear whether Democrats will try to use that manoeuvre on other policy goals such as legislation dealing with climate change and immigration.

One Republican, Daniel Sullivan of Alaska, left Washington on Friday night for a family funeral, meaning that Democrats did not need Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote in the normally 50-50 chamber.

Republicans have broadly supported previous stimulus packages to fight the virus and revive the economy. But with Democrats in charge of the White House and both chambers ofCongress, they criticized  this bill as too expensive.

The country has yet to replace 9.5 million jobs lost since last year and the White House says it could take years to do so.

Washington got unexpected good news on Friday after data showed that U.S. employment surged in February, adding 379,000 jobs, significantly higher than many economists had expected.

Source: REUTERS

Rape in Southern Cameroons War and La Republique du Cameroun’s tradition of impunity

7, March 2021

Rape in Southern Cameroons War and La Republique du Cameroun’s tradition of impunity 0

Rape has successfully been mischaracterized and dismissed by President Biya and his top military leaders in Yaoundé for more than three decades and in the last four years; the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime has accepted rape precisely because it is so commonplace in Southern Cameroons.

Ever since President Paul Biya declared the war against the English speaking minority in Southern Cameroons, numerous reports of rape by Francophone soldiers from the renowned Human Rights Watch have been dismissed as a kind of propaganda coming from the Ambazonia Interim Government and the Southern Cameroons diaspora.

Responding to reports of widespread rape of women and teenage girls in Southern Cameroons, the Biya administration has either denied that the rapes are occurring or has blamed the Southern Cameroons victims for not cooperating with Cameroon government army soldiers.

To be sure, Paul Atanga Nji Minister of Territorial Administration who himself hails from British Southern Cameroons territory noted in a conversation with our undercover reporter that the rape allegations were made by the people of Southern Cameroons solely to attract sympathy and give the Biya government negative publicity.

A Francophone army general from Beti extraction and married to three wives said during a security briefing recently in Yaoundé that Cameroon government soldier conducting an operation at the dead of night in the North West and South West is unlikely to think of rape when he is not even certain if he will return alive as if soldiers that carryout rape must do so operating under safe conditions.

Francophone soldiers are motivated to rape precisely because rape serves the strategic interests of the Biya Francophone regime.

Several Southern Cameroons women are now openly recalling harrowing tales of sexual abuse in Bui, Menchum, Mezam, Ngoketunjia, Ndian, Kupe Munenguba, Meme, Manyu, Fako and Donga Matung counties.

For many, their bodies are still trembling while narrating what the Francophone soldiers did to them. Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered from some of the women that at every moment, they were humiliated before the extreme sexual act.

Many English speaking Cameroonian women and teenage girls are now speaking of sexual abuse, ranging from exposition to extreme cavity searches. A lady in Weh-a locality not too far away from Wum, the chief town in the Menchum County said that she was subjected to sexual harassment for four days when Francophone soldiers stationed in Wum raided her village and she now has HIV.

In Etoko village in Manyu where two Francophone soldiers reportedly rape a 17 year old girl, she told a visiting Roman Catholic priest that “When I refused to take my kaba off, the two soldiers attacked me and ruptured my pants.”

Sexual abuses in Southern Cameroons are part of an organized Biya regime policy to infuse humiliation and torture against all Southern Cameroons families and detainees especially against women and children.

In French Cameroun detention centers such as the Kondengui High Security Prison in Yaoundé and the New Bell Prison in Douala, Francophone prison authorities have made sexual harassment a tool to put pressure on prisoners especially in the interrogation sessions. Many young women and girls in Southern Cameroons are now highly stressed and have lost their consciousness several times and many are also struggling to cope with the HIV virus.

In Kumba, a Francophone soldier deployed to Fiango who wanted sex with a teenage girl reportedly accused her of having a sexual relationship with the Senior Divisional Officer for Meme.

A very pretty GHS Mundemba female student was subjected to sexual harassment in an armored vehicle transfer between Mundemba and Ekondo Titi.

Our chief correspondent in Bamenda hinted that most Southern Cameroons women avoid talking about rape experiences with Francophone soldiers out of the fear of stigma, taking into consideration that the Ambazonia culture treats sex as a shame.

By Isong Asu in London

Prime Minister Ngute says Yaoundé to receive 1 million vaccine doses, did not specify which vaccines!

7, March 2021

Prime Minister Ngute says Yaoundé to receive 1 million vaccine doses, did not specify which vaccines! 0

Cameroon, one of the countries in Africa worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic, is set to receive “very shortly” more than one million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute said on Friday.

Pointing to “a deterioration in the epidemiological situation” in the country, Dion Ngute told state radio that “more than one million vaccine doses will be available very shortly”.

He did not specify which vaccines they were.

Dion Ngute called on the population to get inoculated, but said the vaccination programme would be on a voluntary basis.

“In the space of one week, more than 3,000 new cases have been recorded, bringing the total number of people who have tested positive to Covid-19 to 38,988,” he said.

Cameroon, with a population of 26 million, has registered 588 deaths from coronavirus so far.

Source: Urdupoint

Southern Cameroons War: EU waiting for Biden, Paris steps up pressure, a US strike possible

7, March 2021

Southern Cameroons War: EU waiting for Biden, Paris steps up pressure, a US strike possible 0

After the Vatican made its voice heard, Paris has reminded the Cameroonian government of its concerns about the continuing crisis in the English-speaking provinces. European Union states hope that the new US administration, which purports to put human rights at the heart of its foreign policy, will come to their help, reports Africa Intelligence.

Four years ago, the country’s president, Paul Biya, erroneously declared war on the country’s English-speaking minority which was simply demonstrating to bring its sorry plight to the attention of the government and the international community and what the 88 year-old dictator and his collaborators thought would be wrapped up in a week has now lasted four years with more than 7,000 young Cameroonians already sent to an early grave in a war that has no raison d’etre.

As the Francophone dominated government, its militia and Ambazonia fighters have transformed the country into an open air killing field, the country’s economy has taken a nosedive, with millions of Cameroonians seeking employment and thousands losing their jobs in the country’s two English-speaking regions where the killings are going on unabated.

The number of internally displaced person has continued to swell, while millions have fled to neighboring Nigeria where they are living rough and waiting for the fighting to end for them to return to their country, though their homes have been razed by government soldiers who are wont to inflicting collective punishment on the population each time an army soldier is killed.

The roasting of a baby on February 11, 2021 in Batibo in the North West region of Cameroon seems to be shocking to millions around the world, but very few people remember that the burning of homes during an insurrection or insurgency in Cameroon is a government policy which dates back to the days of the marquisard movement in East Cameroon.

The burning of a baby in Batibo on the country’s Youth Day by government army soldiers is a clear reminder that peace and stability are still illusory in Cameroon though the government is giving the impression that things are stabilizing in Southern Cameroons.

The roasting of vulnerable people is nothing new during this conflict that has already sent more than 7,000 Cameroonians to an early grave. 

Kwakwa and Ngarbuh are still fresh in many minds. In Kwakwa, an old woman and a sick old man were roasted alive by army soldiers who are supposed to protect innocent civilians.

In Ngarbuh, government troops gunned down scores of people and set homes ablaze, leaving many calcinated in their homes. These were young children and pregnant women who had nothing to do with the insurgency that has been playing out in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon for over four years.

The Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime clearly holds that burning the homes of the poor and innocent people will cause the population to discontinue its support to the insurgents even when it has not been really proven that the population is supporting the fighters.

We of the Cameroon Concord News Group believe and fervently too that US President Joe Biden is now left with no other option on the table than a military strike against Yaoundé.

By Chi Prudence Asong

Clashes in Senegal kill one after arrest of opposition leader Sonko

5, March 2021

Clashes in Senegal kill one after arrest of opposition leader Sonko 0

Senegalese police clashed with supporters of arrested opposition leader Ousmane Sonko on Thursday, leaving one person dead in the south of the country, a police official said.

It was the first death confirmed in clashes since Sonko was arrested on Wednesday for disturbing public order as protests broke out ahead of his court appearance on a rape charge.

Sonko, leader of the opposition Pastef party and former presidential candidate, is considered a key potential challenger for President Macky Sall in elections in three years.

One person was killed in clashes on Thursday in Bignona town, in the southern Casamance region, the police official said.

“We still don’t know the cause, it is under investigation,” said the official who asked not to be identified.

Four police were also injured in the fighting.

Sonko’s arrest has triggered the worst unrest seen in Dakar in years, in a West African country known for its stability.

Dozens of students were still holed up in Dakar’s Cheikh Anta Diop university on Thursday, where they threw concrete blocks at police, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

Sonko was to be transferred Thursday evening to a Dakar courthouse where his case will be heard by a judge. But his lawyers said the hearing had been postponed to Friday.

“Ousmane Sonko is now the subject of a warrant. He will be taken to the investigating magistrate tomorrow, willingly or by force,” Abdoulaye Tall, one of his attorneys, told AFP.

Senegalese regulatory authorities on Thursday also suspended the signal of two local television channels, Sen TV and Walf TV, accusing them of broadcasting “in loop” images of the unrest after Sonko’s arrest.

Popular with youth

Hundreds of people had followed his motorcade on Wednesday, sounding horns and singing before clashes erupted and Sonko was arrested before reaching the court.

Interior Minister Antoine Felix Abdoulaye Diome said Sonko had been arrested over a ban on gatherings because of the coronavirus and violating a traffic plan put in place.

“Everyone has to comply. Others have done the same. I wonder why there would be an exception,” he told RFM radio.

Sonko also denies the rape charges filed against him last month by an employee at a salon where he received massages.

A 46-year-old devout Muslim, Sonko is frequently critical of Senegal’s ruling elite and is popular with young people.

He accuses Sall of conspiring to sideline him ahead of the 2024 elections.

Violence also broke out Wednesday in other areas including in Casamance, where Sonko’s father is from and where he has a strong following.

Sonko ran against the president in the 2019 vote, but finished third in a race that delivered the incumbent a second term.

Presidents in the former French colony are limited to two consecutive terms, but Sall launched a constitutional review in 2016, raising suspicions he intends to run again.

Source: AFP

The Holy Father begins historic visit to war-ravaged Iraq as ‘pilgrim of peace’

5, March 2021

The Holy Father begins historic visit to war-ravaged Iraq as ‘pilgrim of peace’ 0

Pope Francis landed in Iraq Friday to begin his historic trip to the war-battered country, defying security fears and the pandemic to comfort one of the world’s oldest and most persecuted Christian communities.

The pope, who wore a mask during the flight, kept it on as he descended the stairs to the tarmac and was greeted by two masked children in traditional dress.

A red carpet was rolled out on the tarmac at Baghdad’s international airport with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi on hand to greet him.

The 84-year-old, who said he is making his first-ever papal visit to Iraq as a “pilgrim of peace,” will also reach out to Shiite Muslims when he meets Iraq’s top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. 

The four-day journey is the pope’s first abroad since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, which left the leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics saying he felt “caged” inside the Vatican.

While Francis has been vaccinated, Iraq has been gripped by a second wave with a record of over 5,000 new cases a day, prompting authorities to impose full lockdowns during the pontiff’s visit.

Security was tight in Iraq, a country that is still hunting for Islamic State (IS) group sleeper cells after years of war and insurgency. Only days ago, a barrage of rockets ploughed into a military base hosting US troops.

Hundreds of people had gathered along the airport road with hopes of catching a glimpse of the pope’s plane touching down.

Iraqis were keen to welcome him and the global attention his visit will bring, with banners and posters hanging high in central Baghdad, and billboards depicting Francis with the slogan “We are all Brothers” decorating the main thoroughfare.

Services in ravaged churches, refurbished stadiums

Francis will preside over a half-dozen services in ravaged churches, refurbished stadiums and remote desert locations, where attendance will be limited to allow for social distancing.

Inside the country, he will travel more than 1,400 kilometres (870 miles) by plane and helicopter, flying over areas where security forces are still battling IS remnants.

For shorter trips, Francis will take an armoured car on freshly paved roads that will be lined with flowers and posters welcoming the leader known here as “Baba Al-Vatican”.

The pope’s visit has deeply touched Iraq’s Christians, whose numbers have collapsed over years of persecution and sectarian violence, from 1.5 million in 2003 to fewer than 400,000 today.

“We’re hoping the pope will explain to the government that it needs to help its people,” a Christian from Iraq’s north, Saad al-Rassam, told AFP. “We have suffered so much, we need the support.”  

‘Too many martyrs’

The first day of the pope’s ambitious itinerary will see him meet government officials and clerics in the capital Baghdad, including at the Our Lady of Salvation church, where a jihadist attack left dozens dead in 2010.

He will also visit the northern province of Nineveh, where in 2014 IS jihadists forced minorities to either flee, convert to Islam or be put to death.

“People had only a few minutes to decide if they wanted to leave or be decapitated,” recalled Karam Qacha, a Chaldean Catholic priest in Nineveh.

“We left everything — except our faith.”

Some 100,000 Christians — around half of those who lived in the province — fled, of whom just 36,000 have returned, according to Catholic charity “Aid to the Church in Need”.

Among the returnees, a third have said they want to leave again in coming years, dismayed by Iraq’s rampant corruption, persecution and poverty, which now affects 40 percent of the population.

The exodus is a loss for all of Iraq, said Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, who heads the Vatican’s Congregation for the Oriental Churches and will accompany the pope to Iraq.

“A Middle East without Christians is like trying to make bread with flour, but no yeast or salt,” he said.

The visit aims not only to encourage Christians to stay in their homeland, but even prompt some emigres to return from nearby Lebanon and Jordan, or further afield like Canada and Australia.

In a video address ahead of the trip, Francis evoked “the wounds of loved ones left behind and homes abandoned,” saying there had been “too many martyrs” in Iraq.

“I come as a pilgrim, a penitent pilgrim to implore forgiveness and reconciliation from the Lord after years of war and terrorism.”               

‘Minarets and church bells’

The pope has insisted on the visit despite resurging violence.

Rocket attacks across the country have left three people dead in recent weeks, including a US contractor who died Wednesday.

Francis’ determination to travel to areas long shunned by foreign dignitaries has impressed many in Iraq — as has his planned meeting with Sistani, 90, the top authority for Iraq’s Shiites.

A highly reclusive figure who rarely accepts visitors, Sistani will make an exception to host Francis at his humble home in the shrine city of Najaf on Saturday.

Banners all over Najaf have celebrated “the historic encounter, between the minarets and the church bells”.

Francis, a major supporter of inter-religious dialogue, will afterwards head to the desert site of Ur, where Abraham is thought to have been born.

There, he will host an interfaith service that will bring together not only the Abrahamic religions but also include followers of other beliefs, including Yazidis and Sabeans.

The Pope’s programme in Iraq includes visits to the cities of Baghdad, Najaf, Ur, Mosul, Qaraqosh and Erbil. He will traverse some 1,445 km in a country where Iraqi-American tensions still linger and where more recently the scourge of Covid-19 has led to record numbers of infections.

Pope Francis will travel in an armoured car to avoid the customary crowds that flock to catch a glimpse of the leader of the Catholic Church. At times he will be required to travel either by helicopter or plane over areas where jihadists belonging to the Islamic State group are still present.

Proceedings kick off Friday with a speech to Iraqi leaders in Baghdad, addressing the security and economic difficulties confronting Iraq’s 40 million people. The pope is also expected to mention the persecution of the country’s Christian minority.

On Saturday he will visit the holy city of Najaf, where he will be hosted by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the highest authority for many Shiites in Iraq and the world.

The pope will make a trip to the ancient city of Ur, the birthplace, according to the Bible, of the prophet Abraham, a figure common to the three monotheistic religions. There he will pray with Muslims, Yazidis and Sanaeans (pre-Christian monotheisms).

Francis will continue his journey on Sunday in the province of Nineveh (northern Iraq), the cradle of Iraqi Christians. He will then head to Mosul and Qaraqoch, two cities marked by the destruction of the Islamic extremists.

The pontiff will conclude his tour by presiding over an open-air Mass on Sunday in the presence of thousands of Christians in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. This Kurdish Muslim stronghold has offered refuge to hundreds of thousands of Christians, Yazidis and Muslims who fled the atrocities of the Islamic State group.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and REUTERS)

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