Star Metro - Thousands gather for Pope Leo's first mass in Angola

Leo flew to Portuguese-speaking Angola on Saturday to start the third leg of a four-nation African tour.

He went immediately into a meeting with President Joao Lourenco and other officials, where he spoke out against oppression and the "suffering" caused by poverty and the rampant exploitation of natural resources.

The remarks continued a theme of his 11-day tour during which he has delivered pointed warnings against corruption and the plunder of the continent's natural wealth.

Multitudes -- many seeking a message of hope in difficult circumstances -- turned out to join Leo for the Sunday mass at Kilamba on the outskirts of the capital.

Patricio Musanga, 32, said he was looking for encouragement for young people in Angola, where a lack of work made many seek better opportunities in Western countries.

"He needs to give us hope, to help us understand that from here we can live better than abroad," he told journalists.

"We are very rich in natural resources but ... there is a glaring inequality between those who live well and the others," said Musanga, wearing a cap and a T-shirt showing the Pope's image.

Even though Angola is one of Africa's top producers of crude oil and is also rich in resources like diamonds, around a third of its population of 36.6 million people live in poverty, according to the World Bank.

"There's a concentration of wealth in the hands of very few, and of course the war just aggravated the situation," said Father Pedro Chingandu, who had come from the eastern province of Moxico to attend the mass.

Angola is still scarred by a civil war that erupted after independence from Portugal in 1975 and ended in 2002.

"We need real democracy and the redistribution of wealth and justice," Chingandu told AFP.

- Slave-route shrine -

After Kilamba, the pope is to travel 110 kilometres (70 miles) by helicopter to the town of Muxima, Angola's most venerated pilgrimage site, where a 300-year-old church overlooks a river that was once a major slave trading route.

The church, with a statue of the Virgin Mary known affectionately as "Mama Muxima", draws roughly two million pilgrims a year and large crowds are expected to meet the pope.

Angola's Portuguese colonial settlers built the church to baptise slaves before they were transported down the Kwanza River to the Atlantic and on to the Americas.

The government has embarked on a massive multi-million-euro project to build a basilica, houses and public services in the town, which has drawn some criticism about the government's spending priorities.

Poverty was partly blamed for a three-day looting spree in Luanda and other towns in July last year when around 30 people were killed in what critics said was a heavy-handed police response.

Analysts said the unrest signalled dissatisfaction with Lourenco's socialist MPLA party, which has held power since independence in 1975.

- Regrets Trump spat -

Leo, who was elected a year ago, started his African tour in Algeria on Monday and then headed to Cameroon.

He told journalists on the flight to Angola he regretted that a war of words with US President Donald Trump -- who has called him "weak" after he called for an end to the Middle East war -- had overshadowed much of the trip.

It is "not in my interest at all" to debate the US leader, Leo said.

From Angola, he will travel to Equatorial Guinea, the final stop of a whirlwind 18,000-kilometre journey across the continent.

O.Ouellet--SMC