Bells rang out Sunday over St Peter’s Square as Pope Leo XIV created seven new saints, including the first from Papua New Guinea, an archbishop killed in the Armenian genocide, and a Venezuelan “doctor of the poor.”

Also canonised during the solemn ceremony, under sunny skies in the vast plaza on World Mission Day, were three nuns who dedicated their lives to the poor and sick and former Satanic priest Bartolo Longo.

The Italian lawyer born in 1841 subsequently rejoined the Catholic faith and went on to found the Pontifical Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary of Pompeii.

“Today we have before us seven witnesses, the new Saints, who, with God’s grace, kept the lamp of faith burning,” Leo told an audience the Vatican estimated at some 55,000 people.

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“May their intercession assist us in our trials and their example inspire us in our shared vocation to holiness,” he said during his homily.

Huge portraits of the seven were unfurled from windows over the square as Leo, the first US pope, exited St Peter’s Basilica dressed in a ceremonial white cassock with a white mitre on his head, preceded by white-clad bishops and cardinals.

Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints—the Vatican department charged with beatification and canonisation—read aloud profiles of the seven to applause from the crowd.

With Leo’s reading of the canonisation formula, they were officially declared saints.

In his homily, Leo described the new saints as either “martyrs for their faith,” “evangelisers and missionaries,” “charismatic founders” of congregations, or “benefactors of humanity.”

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The rite of canonisation was the second for the former Robert Prevost since he was made leader of the Catholic Church on May 8.

Last month, he proclaimed as saints Italians Carlo Acutis—a teenager dubbed “God’s Influencer” who spread the faith online before his death at age 15 in 2006—and Pier Giorgio Frassati, considered a model of charity who died in 1925, aged 24.

Canonisation is the final step towards sainthood in the Catholic Church, following beatification.

Three conditions are required—most crucially that the individual has performed at least two miracles. He or she must be deceased for at least five years and have led an exemplary Christian life.

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Martyrs, humanitarians

Along with Longo, those made saints Sunday were Peter To Rot, a lay catechist from Papua New Guinea killed during the Japanese occupation during World War II, Armenian bishop Ignazio Choukrallah Maloyan, killed by Turkish forces in 1915, and Venezuela’s Jose Gregorio Hernandez Cisneros, a layman who died in 1919, whom the late Pope Francis called a “doctor close to the weakest.”

Also from Venezuela was Maria Carmen Elena Rendiles Martinez, a nun born without a left arm who overcame her disability to found the Congregation of the Servants of Jesus before her death in 1977. She becomes the South American country’s first female saint.

The Italian nuns canonised are Vincenza Maria Poloni, the 19th-century founder of Verona’s Institute of the Sisters of Mercy, which cares primarily for the sick in hospitals, and Maria Troncatti of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians.

In the 1920s, Troncatti arrived in Ecuador to devote her life to helping its indigenous population.

AFP

Gaza’s nine-day-old ceasefire came under strain Sunday after the Israeli army said it launched air strikes in response to attacks it claimed were carried out by Hamas militants against its forces.

Hamas, however, maintained it was adhering to the truce, with one official accusing Israel of devising “pretexts” to resume its own attacks.

Later on Sunday, the military said in an online briefing that it launched strikes after attacks in Rafah, southern Gaza, and in the northern town of Beit Lahia, warning, “There is a possibility of more strikes.”

Gaza’s civil defence agency, which operates under Hamas authority, said at least 13 people had been killed across the territory. The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports of casualties.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier instructed security forces to take “strong action against terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip,” his office said in a statement, accusing Hamas of “a ceasefire violation.”

The Defence Minister, Israel Katz, then warned that the group would “pay a heavy price for every shot and every breach of the ceasefire,” adding Israel’s response would “become increasingly severe.”

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The uneasy truce in the Palestinian territory, brokered by US President Donald Trump and taking effect on 10 October, brought to a halt more than two years of devastating war between Israel and Hamas.

The deal established the outline for hostage and prisoner exchanges and was proposed alongside an ambitious roadmap for Gaza’s future, but it has immediately faced challenges in implementation.

“Earlier today, terrorists fired anti-tank missiles and opened fire on IDF (army) forces” in Rafah, the military said in a statement.

“The IDF responded with air strikes by fighter jets and artillery fire, targeting the Rafah area,” the statement said.

Palestinian witnesses told AFP clashes erupted in the southern city of Rafah in an area still held by Israel.

One witness, a 38-year-old man who asked not to be identified by name, said that Hamas had been fighting a local Palestinian gang known as Abu Shabab, but the militants were “surprised by the presence of army tanks”.

READ ALSO:Trump Gives Update On Israel, Hamas Peace Deal

“The air force conducted two strikes from the air,” he said.

‘Security illusion’

National security minister and right-wing firebrand Itamar Ben Gvir urged the army to “fully resume fighting in the Strip with all force.”

A statement from Izzat Al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, reaffirmed the group’s commitment to the ceasefire and said Israel “continues to breach the agreement and fabricate flimsy pretexts to justify its crimes.”

Hamas’s armed wing insisted on Sunday that the group was adhering to the ceasefire agreement with Israel and had “no knowledge” of any clashes in Rafah.

Under Trump’s 20-point plan, Israeli forces have withdrawn beyond the so-called Yellow Line, leaving them in control of around half of Gaza, including the territory’s borders but not its main cities.

Hamas, in turn, has released 20 surviving hostages and is in the process of returning the remaining bodies of those who have died.

The war, triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, has killed at least 68,159 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the United Nations considers credible.

READ ALSO:Trump Threatens To Unleash ‘Hell’ On Hamas

The data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but indicates that more than half of the dead are women and children.

Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Rafah crossing closed

On Sunday, Israel identified the latest two bodies returned overnight as Ronen Engel and Thai farmworker Sonthaya Oakkharasri.

Engel, a resident of Nir Oz kibbutz, was abducted from his home aged 54 and killed during the October 7 attacks, with his body taken to Gaza.

He was a photojournalist and volunteer ambulance driver for Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, in the southern Negev region.

A farmworker at the Beeri kibbutz, Oakkharasri, was also killed in the attack on Israel. He had a seven-year-old daughter.

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Israel returned the bodies of 15 Palestinians to Gaza on Sunday, bringing the total number handed over to 150, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said.

The issue of hostage bodies still in Gaza has become a sticking point in the ceasefire implementation, with Israel linking the reopening of the main gateway into the territory to the recovery of all of the deceased.

Relief agencies have called for the Rafah crossing from Egypt to be reopened to speed the flow of food, fuel and medicines.

Hamas has so far resisted disarming and, since the pause in fighting, has moved to reassert its control over Gaza.

The group has said it needs time and technical assistance to recover the remaining bodies from under Gaza’s rubble.

Netanyahu’s office said reopening Rafah would “be considered based on how Hamas fulfils its part in returning the hostages and the bodies of the deceased, and in implementing the agreed-upon framework,” it said.

Hamas warned late Saturday that the closure of the crossing would cause “significant delays in the retrieval and transfer of remains.”

AFP

The World Bank President, Ajay Banga, has warned that without deliberate and coordinated global action, the growing population of young people could become a source of instability rather than a catalyst for progress.

This was as he projected that Nigeria’s population may rise by about 130 million by the year 2050.

Banga disclosed this during the 2025 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, where he warned that Africa’s explosive population growth presented both an unprecedented opportunity and a looming risk.

He cautioned that failure to create economic opportunities might turn youthful optimism into frustration, fueling unrest, insecurity, and mass migration with far-reaching consequences for every region and economy.

According to him, with the right investments focused on opportunity rather than need, Africa’s young population could become a powerful engine for sustainable growth and innovation in the decades ahead.

Banga described the coming decades as “one of the great demographic shifts in human history,” noting that by 2050, more than 85 per cent of the world’s population will live in countries currently considered developing.

He warned that over the next 10 to 15 years, approximately 1.2 billion young people will enter the global workforce, competing for only 400 million available jobs, resulting in a gap of 800 million unemployed or underemployed youths worldwide.

A transcript of his speech obtained by our correspondent on Saturday read, “Reconstruction is an essential part of our mandate. A service we stand ready to deliver whenever and wherever it’s needed and to the best of our ability. At the same time, as an institution of development, we are equally committed to conflict prevention.

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“Alongside rebuilding what has been lost, we must also focus on creating the conditions for opportunity and stability. That is what motivates our actions and decisions today. We are living through one of the great demographic shifts in human history. By 2050, more than 85 per cent of the world’s population will live in countries we call “developing” today.

“In just the next 10 to 15 years, 1.2 billion young people will enter the workforce, vying for roughly 400 million jobs. That leaves a very large gap. Let me express that urgency another way: Four young people will step into the global workforce every second over the next ten years.”

He added that in the time it takes to deliver the remarks, tens of thousands would cross that threshold, full of ambition, impatient for opportunity.

The World Bank boss said the pace of population growth was most staggering in Africa, which will be home to one in four people by 2050.

“Between now and then, estimates suggest that Zambia will add 700,000 people every year. Mozambique’s population will double. While Nigeria will swell by about 130 million, firmly establishing itself as one of the most populous nations in the world.

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“These young people, with their energy and ideas, will define the next century. With the right investments, focused not on need but on opportunity, we can unlock a powerful engine of global growth.

“Without purposeful effort, their optimism risks turning into despair, fueling instability, unrest, and mass migration, with implications for every region and every economy,” he added.

According to the United Nations Population Fund, Nigeria’s current population stands at about 237.5 million, already making it the most populous nation in Africa and the sixth largest globally.

However, with the projected surge of 130 million new citizens in the next 25 years, Nigeria could climb even higher, outpacing many developed nations in size and youth population.

The World Bank President described Africa as the epicentre of this demographic transformation, where birth rates remain high and economic growth has struggled to keep pace.

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Banga echoed this concern, warning that failure to harness the demographic dividend could destabilise economies and fuel insecurity.

“Without deliberate action, optimism could give way to despair, driving instability, unrest, and mass migration with consequences for every region and economy,” he noted.

Banga emphasised that job creation must be at the core of all national and international development strategies.

“This is why jobs must be at the centre of development, economic, or national security strategy,” he stated.

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He disclosed that the World Bank Group has expanded its financial capacity by about $100bn through new instruments and partnerships.

The multilateral development bank co-financing platform, he added, now hosts a pipeline of 175 projects, with 22 already financed, worth about $23bn.

The Bank is also working on an IFC2030 strategy aimed at mobilising more private capital to complement public investment, particularly in developing economies like Nigeria.

Nigeria’s fast-growing population has long been a source of debate among economists and policymakers. While its youthful population, estimated at over 60 per cent under age 25, offers potential for innovation and productivity, the country faces severe infrastructure deficits, high unemployment, and limited social services.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that youth unemployment stood at over 33 per cent in 2024, while millions remain underemployed or outside the formal labour force.