A top Vatican official, Cardinal Michael Felix Czerny, sharply criticized the global community on Tuesday(October 4), calling it a "real shame" that no solution has been found for the long-standing Rohingya crisis.

Speaking at a press conference at the CBCB Centre in Dhaka, the Cardinal highlighted the dire conditions faced by the refugees who have fled to Cox's Bazar.

"The situation for the Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar is very challenging," said Cardinal Czerny, the prefect of the Dicastery of Integral Development. "The reality in the camp is that they are stateless, permanently unemployed and being shut in... This is a situation which might be tolerable for a month, but it has been going on for years’’ UNB reported. 

The Cardinal's remarks came at the conclusion of a five-day visit to Bangladesh, from November 1-5. During his trip, he met with Rohingya refugees in their camp, as well as internal migrants in Narayanganj and street children in Mohammadpur.

While expressing gratitude to Bangladesh "for the welcome that they have received," Cardinal Czerny stressed the urgent need for a resolution. He said he hoped for improved conditions and, "most of all, hope that there will be a solution soon so that they can return to their homeland," from which they were "driven out."

The Cardinal also addressed other forms of "international injustice," specifically climate change. He pledged that the Vatican would "seek to speak up in the upcoming climate conference in Brazil on behalf of Bangladesh and other countries who are the innocent victims of the choices, policies, and lifestyles of other countries."

In addition, Cardinal Czerny highlighted the plight of internal migrants within Bangladesh, noting many are "attracted by the jobs in the industries" but then face "great difficulties with housing and schooling."

"Therefore, in some ways, they live as strangers in their own land," he said. "They do not really belong where they have come, and they cannot go back to where they came from."

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