POPE LEO'S APOSTOLIC JOURNEY TO AFRICA

Pope Leo XIV began his first apostolic journey to Africa on April 13, and will travel more than 11,000 miles over 11 days across Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea. The 70-year-old pope will travel on a total of 18 flights, visiting 11 African towns and cities in the four countries from April 13–23.

Pope Leo opened the trip by becoming the first pope to make an apostolic visit to Algeria. The country is 99 percent Sunni Muslim, home to fewer than 9,000 Catholics among more than 45 million people. In the capital, Algiers, he met civil authorities and visited the Great Mosque of Algiers, one of the world's largest mosques, a gesture aimed at reinforcing Christian-Muslim dialogue. The pope also traveled to the northeastern city of Annaba, near the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Hippo Regius, where St. Augustine served as bishop and died in A.D. 430.

From Algeria, Pope Leo will travel from April 15–18 to Cameroon, where he will make a notably sensitive stop in the northwestern city of Bamenda, epicenter of a separatist conflict that has claimed at least 6,500 lives since 2017.

The pope will spend April 18–21 in Angola, home to more than 20.31 million Catholics, according to the latest Vatican statistics. Three-quarters of Angola's young population is under age 30.

The trip concludes April 21–23 in Equatorial Guinea, where roughly 75 percent of the 1.67 million population is Catholic. It will be only the second papal visit to the country; the first was by St. John Paul II in 1982.

The pope will return to Rome on April 23 following a roughly six-hour flight covering approximately 2,850 miles.