Rohingya crisis: Pope Francis heads to Myanmar & Bangladesh

''My presence is a sign of affinity and hope," said Pope Francis as he embarked on a six-day visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh against the backdrop of the unfolding Rohingya refugee crisis.

"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.

Add WION as a Preferred Source

AFP quoting Pope's aides stated Pope 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.

The Pope's message will be spelled out at a Yangon mass expected to be attended by up to a third of the country's 660,000-strong Catholic community, who will be welcoming a pope to their homeland for the first time.

Francis is also due to meet the country's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and army chief Min Aung Hlaing, AFP reports quoting official sources.

Local Church officials hope some 100,000 Catholics will attend an open-air mass in the capital Dhaka that will be subject to tight security in a country where Islamist extremist attacks are on the increase.

In Bangladesh, Francis will be treading in the footsteps of predecessors, John Paul II, who visited Bangladesh in 1986, and Paul VI, who visited what was then East Pakistan in 1970, a year before the country gained independence.