Yaoundé, Cameroon — Yaoundé, Cameroon (AP) – Pope Leo XIV On Friday he approached the halfway point of his four-nation tour of Africa, which included a day focused on encouraging Cameroon’s youth, first with a large mass and then a visit to the country’s Catholic university.
Leo was traveling to Cameroon’s main port city of Douala on Friday to celebrate Mass and visit a hospital. The Vatican estimated some 600,000 people would turn up for the service, with Leo expected to draw the largest crowd ever. 11 day odysseyThe first visit to Africa by the first American Pope in history.
Later Friday in the capital Ouandé, Leo met with students, professors and administrators at the Catholic University of Central Africa. The Pope often uses such encounters, especially in developing countries, to unite youth to confront poverty, corruption and other challenges.
Catholics represent about 29% of Cameroon’s 29 million people. It is an extremely young country, where the average age is 18 years.
Leo has already offered words of encouragement to Cameroon’s youth, including in his commencement address to President Paul Biya, the world’s oldest leader at 93. Leo demanded in the speech “Chains of corruption” Be broke in Cameroon and said that the youth of Cameroon represent the future and hope of the country.
But Cameroon provides perhaps the most dramatic example, with Biya in power since 1982. Tensions between Africa’s youth and many of the continent’s aging leaders.
Despite being an oil-producing country that has experienced modest economic growth, young people say the benefits have not extended beyond the elite.
“Certainly, when unemployment and social exclusion persist, frustration can lead to violence,” Leo warned in his opening address to Biya and government officials earlier this week. “Therefore, investing in the education, training and entrepreneurship of young people is a strategic option for peace. It is the only way to stop the outflow of amazing talent to other parts of the world.”
According to World Bank data, the unemployment rate in Cameroon is 3.5%, but 57% of the labor force aged 18 to 35 work in informal employment.
Due to the dire economic scenario in Cameroon Significant brain drain and already understaffed health sector is under pressureBecause many doctors and nurses are leaving the country for more lucrative jobs in Europe and North America.
According to the Ministry of Higher Education, almost a third of trained doctors graduating from medical school in Cameroon in 2023 will leave the country.
Growing frustration over Biya’s record and long-term rule intensified during last October tense presidential electionIn which Biya secured the eighth consecutive term.
When Cameroon’s main opposition candidate, Issa Tachiroma BakeryProtesting the results of the voting, deadly protests broke out across the country.
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Marc Banchereau contributed from Dakar, Senegal.
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