In Mongomo, Pope said 'to serve the common good rather than private interests'

Pope Leo drew cheering crowds in Mongomo on Wednesday (April 22), the last full day of his four-nation Africa tour, as he urged Equatorial Guineans to bridge the gap between rich and poor.

The 70-year-old pontiff, who was flying about 700 km (435 miles) across Equatorial Guinea to visit three cities, opened his day with an event in Mongomo, on the eastern border with Gabon on the edge of the Congo Basin rainforest.

Crowds danced and cheered as his white Popemobile arrived, with yellow, white, green and red smoke released in celebration. During a Mass in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Leo urged believers "to serve the common good rather than private interests, bridging the gap between the privileged and the disadvantaged."

The Vatican said roughly 100,000 people had gathered inside and outside the basilica to see Leo on Wednesday, pressing in around a colonnade modelled after St. Peter's Square in Rome.

Equatorial Guinea, run since 1979 by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the world's longest-serving president, is oil-rich but has been widely criticised for repression. Leo was also due to visit a high-security prison in Bata that human rights groups say holds political prisoners in abusive conditions.

More than 70 per cent of Equatorial Guinea's 1.8 million people identify as Catholic. Leo is the first pope to visit since 1982.

Production: Yesim Dikmen, Antonio Denti/Reuters