Pope to meet top Myanmar Buddhist monks, address military chiefs

Mass anti-cholera drive in refugee camps

Pope Francis will meet Myanmar’s top Buddhist monks, its military generals and civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in November when he visits that country and Bangladesh, both caught up in a crisis over the Rohingya Muslim minority.

According to a full program of the November 6 to December 2 trip released by the Vatican on Tuesday, the pope will say two Masses in Buddhistmajority Myanmar and one in Bangladesh, which is predominantly Muslim.

The pope arrives in Yangon, the country’s largest city, on November 27 after a flight of more than 10 hours and is scheduled to rest for about 24 hours before heading to the country’s capital Naypyitaw for a day.

There, he will have separate private talks with President Htin Kyaw and Suu Kyi, who is both state counselor and foreign minister, making her effectively the country’s civilian leader.

A senior Vatican official said military leaders are expected to attend a separate, public meeting where the pope will address politicians and diplomats. This is where he is expected to give the keynote speech of the trip.

Myanmar is facing international scrutiny over the plight of its Rohingya community.

Last August, some hard-line Buddhists were riled with the pope spoke about “the persecution of our Rohingya brothers and sisters” and asked Catholics to pray for them,

They added that they should be given “their full rights.”

The UN launched one of its biggest ever cholera vaccination drives in the vast refugee camps of southeast Bangladesh Tuesday amid fears of an outbreak among nearly 1 million Rohingya now living there.

Thousands of Rohingya men and women lined up in intense heat at makeshift health centers, many with young children in their arms, to receive the oral vaccine against the disease.

The UN is working with the Bangladesh government to vaccinate 650,000 people living in the sprawling camps against cholera, which spreads through dirty water and can kill if left untreated.

“These people lack most of the basic services – toilets, water sanitation and everything,” UNICEF spokesperson A M Sakil Faizullah told AFP.

“When we have this kind of situation, there’s a heavy possibility of a cholera outbreak.”

Nearly 520,000 Rohingya Muslims have arrived in Bangladesh since late August, fleeing a military crackdown in neighboring Myanmar’s Rakhine state that the UN has said likely amounts to ethnic cleansing.

Bangladesh has struggled to cope with the mass influx of people, many of whom have to travel for days or even weeks to reach safety and arrive exhausted and malnourished.

The influx had slowed in recent weeks, but now appears to have picked up again and an estimated 11,000 new refugees arrived on Monday.

The UN refugee agency said Tuesday it was working with the Bangladesh authorities to set up a transit centre in preparation for a fresh influx in the coming days.

Many of the new arrivals are from the Buthidaung district of Rakhine which lies relatively far from the border.

World Health Organization (WHO) workers and local volunteers plan to vaccinate 650,000 Rohingya over the coming weeks.

They will follow up with a second dose of the vaccine for an estimated 250,000 children aged between one and five.

It’s the second biggest such campaign ever, after 800,000 people were immunized against the disease in Haiti in November.

Volunteers at the Thankhali camp used loud hailers to appeal to refugees to go to the centres, where they queued to have the vial placed in their mouths.

The WHO’s Bangladesh representative N Paranietharan called the vaccination drive a “huge undertaking” and said he was confident an outbreak would be averted.

He said thousands of Bangladeshis living near the refugee camps would also be vaccinated.

Cholera was a major killer in Bangladesh until in the 1970s, but the country has seen major improvements in sanitation facilities since then.

The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority who have long faced persecution in Myanmar, which regards them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.