NAIROBI, Kenya — Visiting one of Nairobi’s many shantytowns on Friday, Pope Francis denounced conditions slum-dwellers are forced to live in, saying access to safe water is a basic human right and that everyone should have dignified, adequate housing.

Residents of the Kangemi slum lined the mud streets to welcome Francis, standing alongside goats and hens outside the corrugated tinroofed shacks where many of the shantytown’s small businesses operate: beauty parlors, cellphone “top-up” shops and storefront evangelical churches.

Those lucky enough to score a spot at St. Joseph’s parish erupted in cheers and hymns when Francis arrived, ululating and waving paper flags printed with his photo and the “Kariba Kenya” welcome that has been ubiquitous on the pope’s first-ever visit to Africa.

In remarks to the crowd, Francis insisted that everyone should have access to water, a basic sewage system, garbage collection, electricity as well as schools, hospitals and sport facilities.

“To deny a family water, under any bureaucratic pretext whatsoever, is a great injustice, especially when one profits from this need,” he said.

Francis, known as the “slum pope” for his ministry in Buenos Aires’ shantytowns, has frequently insisted on the need for the three “Ls” – land, labor and lodging – and on Friday he focused on lodging as a critical issue facing the world amid rapid urbanization that is helping to upset Earth’s delicate ecological balance.

Kangemi is one of 11 slums dotting Nairobi, East Africa’s largest city, and is home to about 50,000 people. The U.N. Habitat program says some 60 percent of Nairobi’s population lives on just 6 percent of the city’s residential land in these unofficial settlements lacking basic sanitation or regular running water.

Francis denounced the practice of private corporations grabbing land illegally, depriving schools of their playgrounds and forcing the poor into ever more tightly packed slums, where violence and addiction are rampant.

In January, police teargassed schoolchildren demonstrating against the removal of their school’s playground, which has been allegedly grabbed by powerful people. After an outcry, the Kenyan government declared the playground the property of the school.

“These are wounds inflicted by minorities who cling to power and wealth, who selfishly squander while a growing majority is forced to flee to abandoned, filthy and run-down peripheries,” Francis said.

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