The proliferation of armed conflicts is often driven by the exploitation of oil and mineral deposits, the pontiff has said Pope Leo XIV has criticized the “colonization” of Africa’s mineral resources in a speech in Equatorial Guinea, one of the continent’s top oil producers, where nearly half of the population still lives in poverty. The pontiff arrived in the central African nation on Tuesday for the final leg of his 11-day tour of the continent, having previously visited Algeria, Cameroon,