JUBA: Twenty-seven people were killed in South Sudan’s Central Equatoria state on Thursday when violence broke out between cattle herders and villagers a day before Pope Francis’ visit to the country, a local county commissioner told Reuters.

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The pope is set to arrive in South Sudan on Friday from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, hoping to jolt a peace process aimed at ending a decade of conflict fought mostly on ethnic lines that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.