Pope Francis heads to Myanmar, Bangladesh; hopes to soothe Rohingya pain

Pope Francis set off on his 21st and possibly most delicate overseas trip yet, a six-day visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh against the backdrop of the unfolding Rohingya refugee crisis.

The 80-year-old pontiff's plane left Rome en route for Yangon, Myanmar's main city, shortly after 2100 GMT.

He will touch down around 0700 GMT on  hoping to encourage efforts to contain a crisis that has seen many of the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority in the mostly Buddhist Myanmar, forced from their homes and left languishing in squalid refugee camps over the border in Bangladesh.

"I ask you to be with me in prayer so that, for these peoples, my presence is a sign of affinity and hope," Francis told 30,000 believers in St Peter's Square, shortly before packing his bags for the diplomatically fraught trip.

Some 620,000 Rohingya, more than half their total number, have fled from Myanmar's Rakhine state to Bangladesh since August as a result of violence that the UN and the United States have described as ethnic cleansing.

Aides say Francis will seek to encourage reconciliation, dialogue and further efforts to alleviate the crisis following last week's tentative agreement between the two countries to work towards a return of some of the Rohingya to Myanmar.
RED MORE

Rohingya crisis: Thousands rally in defence of Myanmar army

Military songs rang out across downtown Yangon on Sunday as tens of thousands rallied in defence of Myanmar's army, an institution accused by the global community of driving Rohingya Muslims from the country.

More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled western Rakhine state to Bangladesh since late August when raids by militants from the minority group were met with ruthless army "clearance operations".

The United Nations has led global condemnation, calling the crackdown a "textbook" example of ethnic cleansing.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson phoned army chief Min Aung Hlaing earlier this week to express his concerns at alleged atrocities in Rakhine state and urge a swift and safe return for the Rohingya.

But inside Myanmar support for the army has surged — an unlikely turnaround for a once feared and hated institution that ruled for 50 years and whose lawmakers lost heavily in 2015 polls.

Those elections sent Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party into power, but the Rohingya crisis has put her government on the backfoot.

Demonstrators carried banners lauding Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing and rebuking the international community for "pressuring the Tatmadaw" — as Myanmar's army is known.

"The Tatmadaw is essential for the country, it protects our ethnic groups, races and religion," Nan Aye Aye Kyi, 54, told AFP as the rally snaked through Yangon to the iconic Sule Pagoda.
READ MORE

Bangladesh builds one of world's largest refugee camps for 100,000 Rohingya

Hard-pressed to find space for a massive influx of Rohingya Muslim refugees, Bangladesh plans to chop down forest trees to extend a tent city sheltering destitute families fleeing ethnic violence in neighbouring Myanmar.

More than half a million Rohingya have arrived from Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine since the end of August in what the United Nations has called the world’s fastest-developing refugee emergency.

The exodus began after Myanmar security forces responded to Rohingya militants’ attacks on Aug. 25 by launching a brutal crackdown that the United Nations has denounced as ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar has rejected that accusation, insisting that the military action was needed to combat “terrorists” who had killed civilians and burnt villages.

But it has left Bangladesh and international humanitarian organisations counting the cost as they race to provide life-saving food, water and medical care for the displaced Rohingya.

Simply finding enough empty ground to accommodate the refugees is a huge problem.

“The government allocated 2,000 acres when the number of refugees was nearly 400,000,” Mohammad Shah Kamal, Bangladesh’s secretary of disaster management and relief, told Reuters on Thursday.
READ MORE

Rohingya militant group ARSA declares one-month ceasefire on Twitter handle

Rohingya militants, whose August 25 raids in Myanmar's Rakhine State sparked an army crackdown that has seen nearly 300,000 of the Muslim minority flee to Bangladesh, on Sunday declared an immediate unilateral one-month ceasefire.

"The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) hereby declares a temporary cessation of offensive military operations," it said in a statement on its Twitter handle @ARSA_Official, adding it was to allow for humanitarian aid to reach the battered region.

IMPORTANT: PRESS RELEASE
(10th Sept, 2017)#ARSA hereby declares a ceasefire from offensive military operations for one month from today. pic.twitter.com/DHBjQqnyIo
— ARSA_The Army (@ARSA_Official) September 9, 2017

The group urged "all humanitarian actors" to resume aid delivery to "all victims of humanitarian crisis irrespective of ethnic or religious background" during the ceasefire period which runs until October 9.

It urged Myanmar to "reciprocate this humanitarian pause" in fighting, with huge numbers of displaced moving across Rakhine many believed to be in desperate need of help after over two weeks of violence.
READ MORE