The South Sudan National Police service (SSPNS) has said no crimes were recorded during the pontiff’s visit to Juba.

Speaking South Sudanese local radio station Radio Tamazuj on Monday, the spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Daniel Justin said the general situation was calm for the three days the Holy Father was in South Sudan on a three-day ecumenical pilgrimage for peace, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Portal Welby, and Rt Rev Dr. Iain Greenshields, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. 

“Generally, the situation was very calm and we deployed our forces right away from day one,” he said. “We briefed them on how to handle our population, the civilians because we were expecting a very big turnout.”

Last Wednesday, South Sudan announced the deployment of about 5,000 joint forces from the national security, police, and the army in the capital ahead of the pope’s and the other religious leaders’ ecumenical visit.

Gen. Justin said the forces carried out their work as expected without harassing people.

“Generally, our forces carried their work as expected until the last day,” he said. “We also talked to the population through the media houses on how to cooperate with our forces because the forces are out there to keep order.”

The police mouthpiece said the cooperation from the public enabled the security forces to execute their work.