South Sudan will not be on Pope Francis’s visiting list this year.
The Vatican confirmed that although it has been looking into the possibility of Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, visiting South Sudan, it has decided it’s too dangerous to visit the country at present.
The Church of England has not yet said whether Welby will visit the country on his own.
He and Francis had planned to use their trip to help raise the profile of the people living in the war-torn country and to help them find peace.
South Sudan is in a bad way, reports show.
After gaining independence in 2011, the country has suffered violent outbreaks since December 2013.
That was when fighting followed a dispute between President Kiir, who is Dinka, and former vice-president Machar, who is Nuer.
The Dinka and Nuer are South Sudan’s two largest ethnic groups.
An ethnic war followed, which continues to this day. The United Nations says the South Sudanese government forces’ “ethnic cleansing” is “teetering on the edge of genocide”.
About 300,000 people have died and three million have been displaced.
Around half the country’s 10 million people are on the brink of starvation.
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