Pope Leo XIV condemns Africa’s exploitation during Cameroon visit
On a visit to Cameroon's troubled northwest, Pope Leo XIV delivered a forceful rebuke to foreign profiteers, accusing them of siphoning Africa’s wealth and deepening the continent’s hardships.
On a visit to Cameroon’s troubled northwest, Pope Leo XIV delivered a forceful rebuke to foreign profiteers, accusing them of siphoning Africa’s wealth and deepening the continent’s hardships.
Speaking in Bamenda, the epicentre of the country’s long-running Anglophone separatist crisis, he urged Cameroon’s government to confront corruption so that peace can take root. The pontiff said domestic failings are being compounded by outside actors who, “in the name of profit,” continue to seize Africa’s resources to “exploit and plunder” the continent.
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The Pope’s first engagement was a peace meeting at Saint Joseph’s Cathedral in Bamenda focused on the nearly decade-old insurgency in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions, a conflict that has killed at least 6,000 people and displaced many more. Cameroon—carved up between France and Britain after World War I—holds significant reserves of oil, natural gas, bauxite, cobalt, iron ore, gold, and diamonds.