Pope Francis on Wednesday issued a fresh rebuke against Myanmar over its repression of the Rohingya minority group, just days after a United Nations report concluded that security forces had slaughtered and raped hundreds of men, women and children in a “campaign of terror.”“They have been suffering, they are being tortured and killed, simply because they uphold their Muslim faith,” Francis said of the Rohingya in his weekly audience at the Vatican.He asked those present to pray with him “for our Rohingya brothers and sisters who are being chased from Myanmar and are fleeing from one place to another because no one wants them.”The pope urged Christians “to not raise walls but bridges, to not respond to evil with evil, to overcome evil with good,” and added: “A Christian can never say, ‘I’ll make you pay for that.’ Never! That is not a Christian gesture.”The remarks were widely seen as a reference to President Trump’s vow to make Mexico pay for a wall along its border with the United States, though the pope did not mention Mr. Trump by name.Francis also addressed the plight of the Rohingya in 2015, but his latest remarks were his strongest yet on the issue.Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized the crackdown against the Rohingya in Myanmar, formerly Burma, putting Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s first democratically elected leader and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, in an awkward situation.There were hopes that she would bring an end to the Rohingya’s persecution when she was elected in 2015. Last December, President Barack Obama lifted sanctions against Myanmar, declaring that the government there had made “substantial progress in improving human rights.” The Trump administration has not taken a clear position on Myanmar.Observers say tensions between the Rohingya and Myanmar’s security forces appear to be escalating. The Rohingya, who are Muslims in a primarily Buddhist nation, are denied basic rights, including citizenship, freedom of worship and freedom of travel.Since 2012, sectarian violence has displaced more than 100,000 Rohingya from their homes, forcing them to live in what amount to internment camps, where they are prevented from traveling and are forbidden to reclaim land destroyed by conflict. Others have made perilous sea journeys to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.Pope Francis’ latest accusation came after a United Nations report, released last Friday, said that actions by members of the army and the police were “very likely” crimes against humanity.More than 200 Rohingya villagers who had fled Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh gave harrowing testimony to United Nations investigators about the treatment they received.The report said that soldiers and police officers, helped by local villagers, carried out “a calculated campaign of terror” against the Rohingya in Rakhine State after insurgents attacked military posts on the border with Bangladesh, killing nine guards.The report gathered testimonies from witnesses who described “the killing of babies, toddlers, children, women and elderly; opening fire at people fleeing; burning of entire villages; massive detention; massive and systematic rape and sexual violence; deliberate destruction of food and sources of food.”Security forces swept through villages shooting indiscriminately with rocket launchers and from helicopters, witnesses told investigators. Those who tried to flee were shot or burned alive in their homes, villagers said. In one case, an entire family, including elderly and disabled people, was locked inside a house and set on fire.Imams and religious scholars were particularly targeted and some were summarily executed, the report said. The report said the police and soldiers sometimes beat, raped or killed people in front of their relatives with the intention of “humiliating and instilling fear.”A 14-year-old girl recounted how soldiers had raped her, beaten her mother to death and killed her two younger sisters. “They were not shot dead but slaughtered with knives,” she said, according to the report.An 18-year-old girl said that her 60-year-old mother had been caught by the military.“She could not run very well,” she told investigators, “so we saw them catching her and cut her throat with a long knife.”Myanmar’s government said it was taking the allegations in the United Nations report seriously and would take “necessary action.”Source: New York Times