Ouagadougou, 26 November, 2019 / 3:34 am (ACI Africa).
Following reports that give accounts to an increase in terrorism and armed conflict in some parts of Africa with experiences in Africa’s Sahel region contrasting the process recorded in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, an African Cardinal has regarded access to arms a key factor in insecurity on the continent and appealed to relevant political leaders and the international community to help stop the proliferation of weapons in Africa.
"I would like to plead with our leaders and the international community to help us effectively fight arms trafficking in Africa, which is the basis for wars and conflict,” Dieudonné Cardinal Nzapalainga of the Central African Republic (CAR) told close to 1200 pilgrims from across Africa who gathered at the Shrine of Our Lady of Yagma, Burkina Faso for the conclusion of the 4th Pan-African Congress on Divine Mercy Sunday, November 24.
“I also ask all those who carry weapons and explosives to lay them down, convert and come out of the darkness,” Cardinal Nzapalainga who was the Papal delegate to the weeklong congress added.
Faced with the proliferation of weapons on the continent, the Archbishop of CAR’s Bangui Archdiocese wondered "where the weapons come from; who are the people who make them; who are those who sell them; who are those who buy them and for what purpose."
"When I let myself be manipulated by industrialists and war entrepreneurs to kill, destroy my region or country with weapons and explosives, I do not love God, I do not love my neighbor and finally, myself. All those who are killed are members of the body of Christ,” the Cardinal, a member of the religious and missionary Congregation of the Holy Ghost Fathers decried.
