Pope Francis on Saturday said he wept hearing the plight first-hand of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, adding that this meeting was a condition set for his trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh. The Rohingya meeting was a highly symbolic gesture of solidarity with the Muslim minority fleeing violence in Myanmar, and the pontiff told journalists on his plane flying back to Rome that the refugees cried as well. In Bangladesh he addressed the issue head-on, meeting a group of Rohingya refugees from the squalid camps in southern Bangladesh in an emotional encounter in Dhaka. The word is politically sensitive in mainly Buddhist Myanmar because many there do not consider the Rohingya a distinct ethnic group, regarding them instead as interlopers from Bangladesh. During his tour the pope led well-attended open-air masses in Bangladesh and Myanmar, which both have small Christian populations.

Source: Egypt Independent December 02, 2017 23:15 UTC