Bishop John Arnold - CAFOD Trip to Bangladesh - Diary

Bishop John writes about his visit to the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh last month.

The time has come for another trip with CAFOD, for which I feel privileged and grateful. But this trip is to be very different from anything that I have experienced with CAFOD, over the last ten years. Whenever I have previously travelled with CAFOD it has been to see the benefits provided to people through partnerships, where life is improving. In Zambia and Zimbabwe there were new cooperatives and farms benefitting from the provision of fresh water and specialised farming techniques. In Rwanda there was the gradual development for a generation scarred by the massacres of genocide. In Brazil there were the possibilities of employment for those occupying the empty buildings of Sao Paolo and the protection of the indigenous peoples. Even after the horrors of typhoon Hayan in the Philippines, there were the smiling faces of the resilient Filipinos glad to be re-building homes and livelihoods. The wonderful and encouraging list has grown over ten years.

But this trip promises nothing of that hope because I am going to the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh who, for the moment, have no hope nor any certainty for their future. Survival is the immediate challenge.

To read on see: www.dioceseofsalford.org.uk/bishop-john-cafod-diary/?hilite=%27Rohing%27