Pope Urges 'Full Rights' Be Given to Persecuted Rohingya Minority
During his Sunday Angelus address, the Pope said he is following the "sad news of the religious persecution of our brother and sister Rohingya.”
"I would like to express all of my closeness to them,” he said, and asked pilgrims to pray for "the Lord to save them, to arouse men and women of goodwill to help them, who give them full rights.”
The Rohingya are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group largely from the Rakhine state of Burma, in west Myanmar. Since violence began in 2012 by the state's Buddhist community against the long-oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have been displaced, while similar numbers have fled Myanmar by sea.
In order to escape forced segregation from the rest of the population inside rural ghettos, many of the Rohingya – who are not recognized by the government as a legitimate ethnic group or as citizens of Myanmar – have made perilous journeys by sea in hope of evading persecution.
Just since last year, around 87,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh amid a military crackdown on insurgents in Myanmar's western Rakhine state, giving way to horrifying stories of rapes, killings and arson by security forces.
However, in Bangladesh the Rohingya have had little relief, since they are not recognized as refugees in the country. Since last October, many who had fled to Bangladesh have been detained and forced to return to the neighboring Rakhine state.
The Pope's appeal Sunday comes as the number of new deaths continues to rise amid renewed violence against the Rohingya by the Myanmar army, which sprung up Friday on the outskirts of the large city of Maungdaw.
According to the Guardian, nearly 100 have died and thousands have been evacuated as fighting goes into its third day.
So far, the government has reportedly evacuated at least 4,000 villagers, with nearly 2,000 Rohingya Muslims, mostly women and children, fleeing across the border to Bangladesh, where they are now living as refugees in makeshift camps along the border.
Pope Francis, who is expected to make a trip to both Myanmar and Bangladesh sometime before Christmas, has spoken out on the behalf of the Rohingya frequently, and their plight – rights included – is likely to be a key talking point during his visit to the Asian nations.
Source: Catholic News Agency
