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In the opening leg of his four-nation African tour following a stop in Algiers, Algeria, Pope Leo XIV — the first American pope in history — is set to arrive in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital, on Wednesday for a high-stakes visit focused on advancing peace, confronting systemic corruption, and clarifying the ethical obligations of political leadership. This trip puts the Vatican at the center of one of central Africa’s longest-running crises, pitting the Church’s commitment to democratic governance against the entrenched authoritarian rule of 93-year-old President Paul Biya, who has held uninterrupted power since 1982 and secured a disputed eighth term in national elections last October.

The disputed election result has remained a flashpoint of national tension since October 2023. Biya’s main challenger, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, has publicly rejected the official outcome, claiming he won the vote and urging Cameroonians to refuse to recognize Biya’s new term. Even ahead of the pope’s arrival, Vatican officials have made clear that Catholic social doctrine stands in opposition to the authoritarian style of leadership Biya has cultivated over his four decades in power. Just days before the visit, Pope Leo outlined his broader vision for ethical governance in a message to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, dated April 1, that did not name Biya or Cameroon explicitly but carried clear resonance for the trip. In the address, the pope argued that authentic democracy acts as a critical guardrail against the abuse of political power, and that democratic systems only remain healthy when rooted in moral principle and a universal commitment to human dignity. Without that foundational commitment, he warned, democracy risks devolving into either majoritarian tyranny or a thin facade that masks unchecked control by narrow economic and technological elites.

Upon his arrival in Yaoundé, the pope’s first official engagement will be a face-to-face meeting with Biya at the presidential palace. Following that audience, Leo will address a gathering of government officials, civil service leaders, and foreign diplomats, before traveling to a local orphanage operated by a Catholic congregation of nuns. With roughly 29 percent of Cameroon’s population identifying as Catholic, the visit carries deep cultural and spiritual weight for the country, alongside its political implications.

The centerpiece of Pope Leo’s time in Cameroon will be a landmark peace gathering scheduled for Thursday in Bamenda, the capital of the country’s Northwest Region, which has borne the brunt of nearly a decade of separatist violence. The conflict erupted in 2017, when English-speaking separatist factions launched an armed rebellion to split from Cameroon’s French-speaking majority and form an independent state, Ambazonia. According to data from the International Crisis Group, the years of fighting have left more than 6,000 people dead and forced over 600,000 residents from their homes.

In a gesture of goodwill timed to the pope’s visit, separatist groups have announced a temporary ceasefire. The Unity Alliance, a coalition of multiple separatist factions, confirmed the three-day pause in hostilities in a statement released Monday evening, noting that the truce reflects the profound spiritual importance of Pope Leo’s trip and is intended to ensure safe passage for civilians, pilgrims, and visiting dignitaries throughout the visit.

Following the peace meeting in Bamenda, the pope’s second major public event will be an open-air Mass on Friday in Cameroon’s largest coastal city, Douala, where event organizers are projecting an attendance of roughly 600,000 worshippers and attendees. After wrapping up his time in Cameroon on Friday, Pope Leo will travel on Saturday to Angola for the third leg of his African tour, which will conclude the following week in Equatorial Guinea.

This Associated Press religion coverage is produced through a collaboration with The Conversation US, with financial support from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP retains sole editorial responsibility for all content.

As Sudan enters its fourth year of brutal internal conflict between the national military and the Rapid Support Forces, a harrowing portrait of widespread human suffering and systemic collapse has emerged, one that has largely been sidelined by global headlines of other crises. What started as a clash between the two rival power centers in April 2023 has spiraled into one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, leaving millions grappling with starvation, displacement, and persistent violence against innocent civilians. Both warring factions have faced widespread allegations of gross human rights violations, including ethnic cleansing, extrajudicial executions, and widespread sexual violence targeting civilian populations. To fully grasp the scale of the catastrophe, a data-driven breakdown reveals the staggering impact of 36 months of uninterrupted fighting.

The human cost of the conflict starts with a death toll that continues to climb, even as full access to conflict zones remains blocked. Conflict tracking organization ACLED has documented at least 59,000 confirmed fatalities since the war began, but humanitarian aid organizations warn the actual number is far higher. With much of Sudan’s vast territory cut off from independent monitors, thousands of unrecorded deaths from violence, starvation, and preventable disease have likely gone uncounted.

The displacement crisis triggered by the war is one of the largest the world has seen in decades. Roughly 4.5 million Sudanese have fled across international borders, seeking refuge in neighboring countries including Egypt, South Sudan, Libya, and Chad. Another 9 million remain displaced within Sudan’s own borders, crammed into overcrowded makeshift shelters or abandoned public buildings with little access to basic necessities.

Hunger has emerged as one of the conflict’s deadliest weapons, according to global food security experts. The United Nations World Food Program reports that more than 19 million Sudanese are currently facing acute food insecurity, a figure that has pushed millions to the brink of famine. The crisis has been exacerbated by spillover from the escalating conflict in the Middle East, which has driven a 24% spike in fuel prices across Sudan, crippling supply chains for food and humanitarian aid and making it even harder to reach vulnerable communities. Even community-run kitchens that once acted as a lifeline for millions of hungry Sudanese have been forced to shut down: Islamic Relief reports that 354 of these facilities have closed in just the last six months, leaving millions without their primary source of daily meals.

Children have borne a disproportionate share of the war’s harm, UNICEF data confirms. More than 4,300 children have been killed or maimed by violence since the conflict began, and at least 8 million children are currently out of school. Roughly 11% of all schools in Sudan are now occupied by warring factions or repurposed as emergency shelters for displaced families, robbing an entire generation of access to education.

Sudan’s once-functional public health system has also been torn apart by fighting. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed that only 63% of the country’s health facilities are still fully or partially operational. Since the war began, the WHO has verified 217 deliberate attacks on hospitals and health care centers, targeting critical infrastructure that civilians depend on for survival. Even as the humanitarian situation deteriorates, ACLED data shows that air and drone strikes have intensified over the past year, killing 1,032 civilians in 2025 alone as these strikes increasingly target populated areas.

With the war showing no sign of ending and global attention focused elsewhere, Sudanese officials have described the crisis as a “forgotten” or “abandoned” catastrophe, with millions of civilians left to suffer without sufficient international support or intervention to end the conflict.

As Sudan entered the fourth year of its devastating civil conflict on Wednesday, the country’s catastrophic humanitarian collapse has been sidelined by rising tensions in the Middle East, leaving millions of Sudanese in a state of unaddressed catastrophe that top United Nations officials have labeled an “abandoned crisis.”

What began as a 2023 power struggle between two rival military factions — Sudan’s official national military led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo — has since shattered the East African nation, displacing 13 million people from their homes and creating what aid organizations call the world’s most severe humanitarian emergency. Three years of continuous combat have left large swathes of the vast Darfur region in ruins, with no diplomatic breakthrough on the horizon to end the fighting.

International attention and diplomatic resources have shifted sharply away from Sudan following the outbreak of new open conflict in the Middle East, leaving existing ceasefire efforts led by the United States and regional powers dead in the water. Mounting evidence confirms that multiple regional powers continue to back opposing factions from behind the scenes, prolonging the bloodshed with no accountability. UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher summarized the global failure in a stark statement: “This grim and chastening anniversary marks another year when the world has failed to meet the test of Sudan.”

### A Catastrophe Measured in Human Cost
The human toll of Sudan’s war is staggering. Official counts record at least 59,000 people killed, with a single three-day RSF offensive on the Darfur city of el-Fasher last October leaving an estimated 6,000 people dead. UN-backed independent experts have concluded that this operation carried all the defining characteristics of genocide. The International Criminal Court is currently conducting active investigations into potential war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide in Darfur, a region that first became synonymous with mass atrocities two decades ago.

Widespread starvation is now a daily reality across large parts of the country, with the conflict pushing multiple regions into outright famine. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the global leading authority on food insecurity, projected in February that the number of Sudanese suffering from severe acute malnutrition — the deadliest form of hunger — will rise to 800,000 by the end of 2025. Overall, the UN estimates that 34 million Sudanese — nearly two-thirds of the entire population — require urgent life-saving humanitarian assistance. The World Health Organization reports that less than two-thirds of the country’s health facilities remain even partially operational, while cholera and other preventable diseases spread rapidly across unassessed communities.

The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has only exacerbated Sudan’s crisis: fuel prices across the country have spiked by more than 24% in recent months, driven by regional shipping disruptions tied to Middle East tensions, which have in turn pushed already sky-high food prices even higher out of reach for most families.

Denise Brown, the UN’s top humanitarian official based in Sudan, issued a searing rebuke of global inaction earlier this week. “A plea from me: Please don’t call this the forgotten crisis. I’m referring to this as an abandoned crisis,” she said, emphasizing that international neglect is a deliberate choice that prolongs the suffering of the Sudanese people.

### The Origins and Risk of Regional Spillover
The current war grew out of a fractured democratic transition that followed the 2019 popular uprising that ousted longtime authoritarian ruler Omar al-Bashir. After Bashir’s removal, Burhan and Dagalo shared power on a transitional ruling council, but long-simmering tensions over military integration and political control boiled over into open civil war in April 2023. Today, Sudan is effectively split into two competing blocs: the internationally recognized military-backed government centered in the capital Khartoum, and the RSF’s rival administration that controls most of Darfur and parts of the Kordofan region along the South Sudan border.

Neither faction is positioned to win a decisive military victory, according to Sudanese journalist and researcher Shamel Elnoor, who added that the Sudanese people “have become powerless and are subjected to foreign dictates.” The military currently holds control over northern, eastern, and central Sudan, including critical Red Sea shipping ports, national oil refineries, and key pipeline infrastructure. The RSF and its allied militias hold Darfur and most of Kordofan, regions that hold the majority of Sudan’s valuable gold mines and remaining untapped oil reserves.

Regional states have openly backed opposing sides, prolonging the conflict. Egypt has publicly supported the Sudanese military, while UN experts and human rights organizations have repeatedly accused the United Arab Emirates of supplying arms to the RSF — an accusation the UAE has repeatedly denied. Earlier this month, the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab, which tracks the conflict via satellite imagery, documented that the RSF has received consistent military support from a base inside neighboring Ethiopia. The RSF has not issued any public response to the allegation.

Josef Tucker, senior Horn of Africa analyst at the International Crisis Group, warned that the risk of the conflict spreading across Sudan’s national borders is growing, which would make the already intractable war even more difficult to resolve.

### Widespread Atrocities Continue Unchecked
Three years of combat have seen mass atrocities become routine across Sudan, including systematic mass killings, widespread sexual violence including gang rapes, and deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure. The World Health Organization confirms that more than 2,000 medical workers, patients, and first responders have been killed in targeted attacks on hospitals and ambulances across the country.

Most of the documented atrocities have been attributed to the RSF and its allied Janjaweed militias, the same Arab militias that carried out mass genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s. The modern RSF grew directly out of the original Janjaweed, and experts warn that the pattern of atrocities targeting non-Arab communities in Darfur has remained consistent for decades.

Brown, the UN’s Sudan envoy, warned that there is no sign the mass killing will slow. “We have … no reason at all to believe it will stop the mass atrocities that we saw in el-Fasher,” she said.

While the Sudanese military’s 2025 recapture of Khartoum and other central urban areas allowed roughly 4 million displaced people to return to their home regions, those returns have not brought peace or normalcy. Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, CEO of international aid group Mercy Corps, explained that “It’s not really a return to normal. It is trying to survive amidst a new normal” — a reality defined by destroyed infrastructure, collapsed basic services, and persistent economic instability.