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Catholics live in fear and anxiety in Myanmar villages

Growing resistance to military rule has led to increasingly brutal attacks by junta forces
Catholics live in fear and anxiety in Myanmar villages

After fleeing a surge in violence as the military cracks down on rebel groups, refugees gather at a camp in Nawphewlawl near the Myanmar-Thailand border in Kayin state on Feb. 14. (Photo: AFP)

Published: March 24, 2022 10:28 AM GMT
Updated: March 24, 2022 03:51 PM GMT

Benedette Aye didn’t have enough time to pack her belongings when she fled her village in Sagaing Region in northwest Myanmar after hearing soldiers were on their way.

She and her son got on a motorcycle and headed straight to Kalay town, some 133 kilometers from her native Chaung Yoe village. “I didn’t even realize I had no slippers on as I kept running away from the military,” she recalled.

They fell from the motorcycle driven by her son and suffered minor injuries. But they managed to reach their relative’s place in Kalay by somehow avoiding the military checkpoints on their way.

Back home, troops shot dead two Catholics — a father and son — while they were helping the elderly people of the village. Soldiers also burned at least 10 homes and chicken-rearing facilities.

Then they tried to set ablaze a church building but desisted after hearing the pleadings of elderly nuns inside a convent. But they did destroy the robes and sacred items from the sacristy of Mary Help of Christian Church, according to local sources.

On the same day, March 12, the soldiers entered a nearby Buddhist village and shot dead a 14-year-old girl. They also looted a monastery before setting fire to the community and dining halls, media reported.

“My mother who is 81 years old and I had to leave our village eve though she couldn’t move easily. We cannot decide to go back to the village yet as we might encounter the raiding junta troops”

But it is the Catholic villages in Sagaing Region, the heartland of the ethnic Bamar people who live primarily in the Irrawaddy River basin, that remain the main targets for soldiers due to the growing resistance to military rule among People's Defense Force (PDF) groups.

The military has been attacking churches, convents and civilian homes in the predominantly Christian regions, causing thousands of Catholics from villages like Chaung Yoe to flee to nearby villages and towns since late February.

Within days of the military raid on Chaung Yoe, residents of Monhla village in the Archdiocese of Mandalay, where Catholics have lived happily alongside Buddhists for decades, packed their clothes to flee to different places from Mandalay in central Myanmar to Myitkyina in Kachin state.

Monhla, Chaung Yoe and Chan Thar villages are known as Bayingyi villages, referring to its people who are descended from Portuguese mercenaries or adventurers who arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries. The three villages have produced many bishops, priests and religious nuns and brothers.

But as the fear of the raiding junta soldiers gripped Monhla, except for some young men, most of the elderly, sick, women and children fled the village.

“My mother who is 81 years old and I had to leave our village even though she couldn’t move easily,” said 43-year-old Esther Phyu. “We cannot decide to go back to the village yet as we might encounter the raiding junta troops.”

Residents of Catholic villages in the predominantly Bamar Buddhist region or in the Bayingyi area haven’t experienced military raids or shelling for decades.

It further said that security forces have shown a flagrant disregard for human life, bombarding populated areas with airstrikes and heavy weapons and deliberately targeting civilians

The brutality of Myanmar’s military has been unleashed for the longest time in ethnic Christian areas like Kachin, Karen, Kayah and Chin states, where raids on villages, killings of innocent civilians, arbitrary arrests and sexual violence against women continue unabated.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a report released last week that junta troops had carried out mass killings in the Sagaing Region, with some victims found with their hands and feet tied.

It further said that security forces have shown a flagrant disregard for human life, bombarding populated areas with airstrikes and heavy weapons and deliberately targeting civilians.

Junta troops have razed at least 4,571 civilian homes since Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup just over a year ago. More than half of the destroyed homes were in the embattled Sagaing Region, according to a group that monitors the effects of political and armed conflicts in the Southeast Asian nation.

The junta is struggling to consolidate power after meeting growing resistance from newly emerged PDFs, especially in Sagaing, Magway and Kayah and Chin states.

The conflict has displaced more than 502,600 people from their homes, with a further 31,000 people seeking refuge across the border in India, according to the UN.

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