Rakhine State: Burma and Rohingya

rakhine state: Francis has said his aim in coming to Burma is to minister to its Catholic community, which numbers around 660,000, or just over 1 per cent of the population of about 52 million, according to Toronto Star. Read more Pope Francis avoids saying Rohingya' in speech after meeting Burmese leader Article Continued Below The one word Burma's generals don't want the pope to say on his visit Rohingya'Pope Francis immediately dives into Rohingya crisis upon arrival in Burma His trip has been overshadowed, though, by Burma's military operations targeting the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine state. Local authorities estimated that about 150,000 people turned out at Yangon's Kyaikkasan Ground park for the Mass, but the crowd seemed far larger and included faithful bearing flags from Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, among other places. The crackdown, which has been described by the U.N. as a campaign of textbook ethnic cleansing, has drawn international condemnation. react-empty 164 In his first public comments on Tuesday, Francis told Burma leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other government authorities that the country's future lay in respecting the rights of all its people none excluded but he refrained from mentioning the Rohingya by name. Pope Francis insisted on Tuesday that Burma's future depends on respecting the rights of each ethnic group in a speech where he indirectly showed support for the Rohingya Muslims who have been subject to decades of discrimination. The violence, including the looting and burning of Rohingya villages in Rakhine, has resulted in more than 620,000 people fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh in Asia's worst refugee crisis in decades. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.