Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the most senior bishop in the Church of England, touched down at Moyo Airfield Wednesday morning, set for a visit to two South Sudanese refugee camps in Adjumani and Moyo, Uganda. He was warmly welcomed by religious leaders, government officials including minister of state for disaster preparedness Musa Ecweru as well as pupils of Erupi Primary School and students of Erupi Primary Teachers College.
Archbishop Welby flew into the country Tuesday evening ahead of his scheduled trip to the northen part of Uganda.
Earlier, on Tuesday, Rev. Hosea Odongo told New Vision that Archbishop Welby was from South Sudan where he had gone to inaugurate the new Anglican Church province which comprises of five dioceses.
Odongo said the Archbishop of Cantebury was to visit refugees from South Sudan living in Bela Meling in Moyo district and Mireyi in Adjumani, in northern Uganda. It is to be recalled that the Archbishop had in 2014 visited South Sudan and prayed at the site in Bor where church-workers were recently murdered.
Aid workers repeatedly reported horrific atrocities committed by both sides in the conflict. Archbishop Justin Welby who, on a five-day visit to Anglican leaders in the region, travelled with the Archbishop of South Sudan and Sudan, Daniel Deng, to the church compound where atrocities were recently committed against pastors, lay readers and women’s workers taking refuge there.
Together with Archbishop Daniel (pictured right), Archbishop Justin prayed at the mass grave awaiting the burial of the bodies.
Speaking afterwards, Archbishop Justin said: “What we saw today in Bor was truly devastating. The truth must be established, the victims recognised and the suffering acknowledged. Establishing the truth has to be the first step towards reconciliation. We are called to tell the truth in love.
“We need to grow closer to Jesus Christ. Only Jesus Christ can change the situation and change human hearts. His own prayer was ‘Father forgive’. The promise of the Holy Spirit warms in us the love of those who do us harm.”
“After visiting those two camps in Adjumani and Moyo, the Archbishop will return to meet President Museveni before he departs in the evening,” he said.
Minister Ecweru, who received the visiting Archbishop at Moyo Airfield, is set to take him around the two refugee camps.
“We got a communication from the church that the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury expressed interest to visit the two camps in Ajumani and Moyo and it is the reason I travelled early,” he said on Tuesday.
Asked why the Anglican leader had focused on the two camps, Ecweru said that it was the church’s arrangement and not government’s.
It is barely a month since Uganda hosted the world refugee conference attended by high profile leaders from across the world, including UN secretary general António Guterres.
Currently, Uganda is one of the leading refugee-hosting nations in the world.
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