Cardinal hopeful Pope visit can help Rohingya
The top Catholic of Francis’s visit there and to Myanmar will bolster moves to alleviate the Rohingya refugee crisis that has put the neighbouring nations in the global spotlight.
Despite last week’s deal to return to Myanmar some of the hundreds of thousands of people housed in the world’s largest side of the border, Cardinal Patrick D’Rozario warns that the situation remains both explosive and tough to resolve.
“I am hopeful the Rohingya can be returned to Myanmar,” D’Rozario, the Archbishop of Dhaka, told Agence France- Presse in an interview ahead of Francis’s visit.
“The international community wants it and the Holy Father’s visit will prepare the minds and hearts of many,” he said.
The United Nation’s refugee agency has said the conditions for a safe return of Rohingya to Myanmar’s Rakhine state are not on Saturday that the plan was for them to be housed in temporary shelters initially.
Despite the difficult backdrop, D’Rozario is looking forward to the visit of the pontiff who made him a cardinal in and its tiny community of 360,000 Catholics.
“They have to go back”
Francis arrives in Myanmar on not include a visit to the vast refugee camp but he is due to meet with a small group of Rohingya in
“The cries of the Rohingya are the cries of humanity,” D’Rozario said. “These cries ought heard and addressed.”
The archbishop spent two days in the camp himself, speaking to families forced from their homes in Rakhine state by a campaign of orchestrated violence and intimidation condemned as ethnic cleansing by much of the international community.
“The main thing is to tell the people ‘ We are on your side’,” he said, adding how he takes inspira tion from Francis’s oft-repeated description of the Church’s role as
Caritas, the Church’s humanitarian arm, is helping to feed 40,000 families in the refugee camp, an estimated total of around 300,000 people.
“Can you imagine? A small church like ours! Working with the Rohingya and taking care of a third of the refugees... our little church!”
Despite his pride in the pivotal minority has been able to play in the crisis, the cardinal admits the outlook is not good.
take care of the Rohingya in the long term,” he said. “They have to go back but they will not go back unless there is certainty on their security, their citizenship, their right to land, right to shelter and also a mental security.”
“The international response for relief has been satisfactory but how long will it last for? Generos it did in the initial phase of the crisis,” D’Rozario said.
Overcrowded, impoverished efforts to accommodate the refugees, he said.
tensions because of the impact of tribal groups. to be