KENYA: ‘Peace must be maintained at all Costs’, Archbishop of Khartoum tells Kenyans
Khartoum's Roman Catholic Archbishop Michael Adgum Didi Mangoria
The message of Most Rev. Michael Didi Archbishop of Khartoum Sudan to the Kenyan people as the country heads for a fresh presidential election amid uncertainties is that peace must be maintained at all costs because it is paramount to the very existence of humanity.
Speaking to AMECEA Online News in Nairobi on his way to Eldoret Town where he is scheduled to attend the AMECEA Executive Board Members’ meeting as well as join in the celebrations to inaugurate the Jubilee Year for AMECEA Pastoral Institute Gaba, Archbishop Didi said that peace is fundamental for growth and development of any country.
“Everybody is usually speaking of peace, even those who are fighting or are inciting others to engage in violence; if you ask them, they would say that we want peace. This to me means that we don’t speak of peace in the same understanding and on the same line,” he said adding that no one benefits from violence including the perpetrators and instigators.
“Sincerely speaking, I do not see any meaning or gain for people to fight so that certain individuals can gain political leadership because the price of violence and destruction only serve to hinder development and growth of a country and its citizens.”
Archbishop Didi explained that the importance for maintaining peace is because peace is from God and that the kind of violence being witnessed in South Sudan, Kenya and other countries in AMECEA Region is an indication that we are not believers in God.
“There are many baptized people but the majority of those are non-believers because if really we are true believers in God, then we should know that violence and killing is a grave sin, which we should reject outright.”
He said that, currently there are nine big refugee camps in Sudan, serving people from South Sudan adding that, these are the official ones that are served by humanitarian organizations. However, there are many displaced people from South Sudan in Khartoum and other parts of Sudan who though not considered as refugees but living hopeless lives because they lost everything back home due to conflict.
“Life in the refugee camps or as a displaced person in a foreign land is not a joke. It is clouded with lots of suffering and inadequacy of basic needs. My advice therefore to the Kenyan people is to maintain Peace, because the price of lack of it means that even the little basic necessities that sometimes you take for granted becomes extremely rare and you have to endure the suffering. Violence is evil, violence benefits nobody.”
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By Pamela Adinda, AMECEA Online News
