During visit to Ghana, Sarah Mullally expresses regret and says controversial fund symbolises Christian belief in repentance At a former British castle where thousands of enslaved…

During visit to Ghana, Sarah Mullally expresses regret and says controversial fund symbolises Christian belief in repentance At a former British castle where thousands of enslaved Africans were held before being shipped across the Atlantic, the archbishop of Canterbury expressed “lament” for the Church of England’s involvement in transatlantic chattel slavery and reaffirmed her commitment to a controversial £100m fund for affected communities. Sarah Mullally made the comments during a visit to the Cape Coast castle, a 17th-century fortress built by Swedish traders, but occupied by the Danish and the Dutch, before the British seized it in 1664. It was part of a 10-day tour of Ghana and Cameroon at the invitation of the head of the Anglican church’s west Africa province, the archbishop Cyril Kobina Ben-Smith. “Being at Cape Coast castle today and seeing the horrific conditions that thousands of people were kept in, it is impossible not to feel the weight of the immense evil that drove the transatlantic slave trade,” Mullally said on Thursday. She was shown the dungeons used to keep enslaved people, before praying in a former Anglican chapel above them. She also visited the “Door of No Return”, where enslaved people were loaded on to ships and ferried across the Atlantic. It has since been renamed the “Door of Return”. Her trip began in the Ghanaian capital of Accra, about 90 miles (145km) east of Cape Coast on Sunday. There, Mullally visited four local parishes and delivered the sermon at a special Eucharistic service at St Joseph the Worker Anglican church in the Kaneshie area. According to local reports, the service was officiated by an all-female clergy from the Anglican church of Ghana. Mullally, who in March became the 106th head of the 492-year-old denomination and the only woman to do so, also met the Ghanaian president, John Mahama, earlier in the tour, along with her husband, Eamonn Mullally.