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On Friday, the Pope will hold talks with PM Sheikh Hasina and is expected to meet some of the Rohingya refugees who have recently arrived in the country to escape persecution by the Myanmar army in their Rakhine State homeland. While in Myanmar, the Vatican was compelled to defend Pope Francis’s avoidance of the word “Rohingya” when referencing the refugee crisis. The country’s security services have been placed on high alert for the first papal visit to Bangladesh since John Paul II in 1986. On Thursday, President Abdul Hamid received the pontiff near the VVIP tarmac of the airport, while two children presented him with a bouquet. Accompanied by the president, Pope Francis inspected a guard of honour formed by the Bangladesh Army, Navy and Air Force, and took the state salute from a makeshift dais as the national anthem of Bangladesh and the Pontifical Anthem and March were played.
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Thereafter, Abdul Hamid introduced the pontiff to Cabinet members including Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, Agriculture Minister Begum Matia Chowdhury, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali, and Law Minister Anisul Haque. Also present at the airport to welcome the Pope were the Cabinet secretary, the chiefs of the three armed services, the PM's senior secretary, the inspector general of police, and the Vatican City Ambassador to Bangladesh, George Kocherry. From the airport, the Pope travelled directly to the National Memorial at Savar, where he arrived at around 4pm and paid tribute to the memories of the 1971 martyrs. He then visited the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum at Dhanmondi 32 to pay his respects by placing wreaths at the portrait of Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. In the evening, the Pope met President Hamid at Bangabhaban and joined a meeting with the speaker, the chief justice, ministers, politicians, civil society members and diplomats at the Darbar Hall. He also signed a visitor's book at the Credential Hall in the president's palace.
