Vatican City, Aug 27, 2017 / 03:50 am
On Sunday Pope Francis made a fresh appeal on behalf of the persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority, voicing his closeness to those suffering from recent violence, and asking that members of the ethnic group be given full rights.
During his Aug. 27 Sunday Angelus address, the Pope said he is following the "sad news of the religious persecution of our brother and sister Rohingya."
"I would like to express all of my closeness to them," he said, and asked pilgrims to pray for "the Lord to save them, to arouse men and women of goodwill to help them, who give them full rights."
The Rohingya are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group largely from the Rakhine state of Burma, in west Myanmar. Since fighing began in 2012 between the state's Buddhist community and the long-oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have been displaced, while similar numbers have fled Myanmar by sea.