Pope Leo XIV Arrives in Equatorial Guinea for Tour Finale

Pope Leo XIV arrived in Equatorial Guinea on Tuesday for the final stop of his four-nation tour across Africa, a visit that carries significant diplomatic weight given the nation's long-ruling president and persistent allegations of corruption and repression.

The pontiff, on his first major trip to the continent as pope, landed in Malabo, the capital on Bioko Island in the Gulf of Guinea, around noon local time. He was greeted by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who at 83 has led the country since a 1979 coup and is Africa's longest-serving head of state. This marks the first papal visit to Equatorial Guinea since St. John Paul II came in 1982. The former Spanish colony, home to nearly 2 million people with about 75 percent identifying as Catholic, boasts substantial oil reserves discovered in the mid-1990s. Oil accounts for almost half of its GDP and over 90 percent of exports, according to the African Development Bank. Despite this wealth, more than half the population lives in poverty, with human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and legal proceedings in France and Spain documenting how oil revenues have primarily benefited the Obiang family.