Pope rails against 'vengeance' as he ends Mozambique visit

Pope Francis on Friday told tens of thousands of faithful at a packed stadium not to resort to "vengeance" as he wound up a visit to Mozambique, ravaged by a 16-year civil war and now the target of jihadist attacks.

His maiden visit to the poor former Portuguese colony came a month after the government and the former rebel group Renamo, now the main opposition party, signed a historic peace treaty.

Brutal jihadist attacks in northern Mozambique have claimed more than 300 lives over two years and forced thousands from their homes.

"We cannot think of the future and build a nation" with violence, the pope said in a homily to a crowd of about 60,000 at the Zimpeto stadium in the Mozambican capital Maputo.

Speaking in Portuguese, he asked them not to follow the old law of retaliation "an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth.

"No family, no group of neighbours or ethnic group and even less no country has a future if the motor that unites them... is composed of vengeance and hatred," he said.

Denouncing reprisals cloaked under the guise of legality, the pope warned that violence was "an endless spiral without end with a very high cost.

"You have the right to peace!" he said.

Mozambique is a mainly Christian country and 28 per cent of the population is Catholic.

Earlier Friday, the pope visited an AIDS care centre on the outskirts of Maputo, hailing the carers for responding to their "silent cry" for help in a country ravaged by the disease.

According to UNAIDS, 2.2 million Mozambicans -- 60 per cent of them women -- were HIV positive in 2018 in the southern African nation of 27 million people.

There were 150,000 new infections last year and 54,000 AIDS-related deaths.

Francis hailed the "compassion" of the health workers for responding to "this silent cry, almost inaudible, of innumerable women and all the people living in shame, marginalised and judged by everybody.

Francis thanked workers at the AIDS centre for "restoring the dignity" of women and children suffering from HIV and AIDS and for "hearing their cries and intervening personally."