Pope says ‘Rohingya’ in emotional encounter with Burma refugees

In a deeply moving encounter in Dhaka, Francis greeted and blessed a group of Rohingya Muslim refugees, grasping their hands and listening to their stories in a show of public solidarity amid Asia’s worst refugee crisis in decades.

He apologised for the “indifference of the world” to their plight and then pronounced the name of their ethnic group to a gathering of Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and Christian leaders.

“The presence of God today is also called ‘Rohingya’,” he said.

The 16 Rohingya – 12 men, two women and two young girls – had traveled to Dhaka from Cox’s Bazar, the district bordering Burma where refugee camps are overflowing with more than 620,000 Rohingya who have fled what the UN says is a campaign of ethnic cleansing by Burma’s military.

The campaign has included the burning of villages and fleeing Rohingya have described rape and shootings by Burmese soldiers and Buddhist mobs that left them no option but to make the dangerous and sometimes deadly journey through jungles and by sea to Bangladesh.

The Burma government has denied any such campaign is under way. The army says “clearance operations” are targeting militants who attacked security positions in August.

Burma’s government and most of the Buddhist majority opoose the term “Rohingya”, saying the members of the Muslim minority are “Bengalis” who migrated illegally from Bangladesh.

Burma does not acknowledge them as a local ethnic group and will not give them citizenship, even though they…