Displaying items by tag: Myanmar

The military junta in Myanmar has carried out its deadliest attack yet on civilians in rebel-held areas. It bombed a meeting of community leaders, killing about 100, including 30 children. The junta has increasingly used airstrikes to crush resistance since it seized power in 2021, often targeting schools and clinics run by the opposition. Myanmar’s military is losing against armed ground battles that have sprung up since the coup, so they are increasingly relying on airstrikes, targeting the most vulnerable. The whole country is up in arms, and every single community is involved in some kind of armed resistance against this military dictatorship. So they are trying to terrorise the civilian populations into submission with mass arrests, torturing prisoners, beheading civilians, and media repression. Graphic images posted online and verified by Al Jazeera and other media show burning limbs at the recent bomb scene. The UN warns of worsening human rights violations across Myanmar.

As Zin Nwe Phyo and her classmates settled down with their teachers, bullets and bombs hit the school and children ran outside to hide. ‘Soldiers fired right through the school walls, hitting the children,’ said one eyewitness. ‘Pieces flying out of the main building injured children in the next building. There were big holes blown out of the ground floor.’ Their attackers were Russian Mi-35 helicopter gunships carrying powerful rapid-fire cannon and rockets which destroy people, vehicles and most buildings. Since Myanmar's military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government, air strikes like this happen routinely in a civil war at a stalemate across much of the country. Zin Nwe Phyo and many others died that day. Resistance to military attacks on civilian targets has increased humanitarian needs and increased opportunities for Christian workers to share about Christ. Local missionaries care for children sheltering with them, opening the way to share the gospel with their parents.

The production of opium increased sharply in Myanmar, reaching nearly 795 metric tonnes in 2022, nearly double the production in 2021 - the year of the military coup that plunged much of Myanmar into a bloody civil war that still continues. The UN believes the increase is driven by economic hardship and insecurity that followed the military takeover, and farmers in remote conflict-prone areas have had little option but to move back to opium. The region, where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos meet - the Golden Triangle - has historically been a major source of opium and heroin production.

The war in Ukraine and the poor global economy have enabled dictators, regimes, and terrorists to take ad­vantage of the situation while the world’s attention was distracted. This will worsen in 2023, to the detriment of Christians. Ask God to protect China’s Christians as the crackdown on house churches accelerates. Pray for all the minorities in Myanmar, where the 2021 political coup has led to many attacks and bombings of churches. The internally dis­placed use churches as shelters. Iran has also taken the opportunity to crack down on churches, Christians, and Muslim-back­ground believers this year. Pray for Christian arrests and torture to diminish in 2023. Indian Christians need our prayers for an end to the anti-conversion laws being enforced in Hindu communities. Afghanistan has no national income and no natural resources, and all assets are frozen worldwide. Christianity is illegal. Those forced to stay or needing support to find safe havens need God's protection.

Governments are blocking swaths of the internet. Pro-democracy activist Ko Jimmy was executed after condemning Myanmar’s military coup online. Idamange Yvonne was sentenced to 15 years in prison for YouTube videos criticising Rwanda’s repressive president. Nicaraguan authorities sentenced journalist Miguel Urbina to nine years in prison for Facebook posts and tweets they deemed threatening to national integrity. Siarhei Tsikhanouski, who ran a YouTube channel criticising Belarus’s government, was jailed for 18 years for inciting unrest. These are only a fraction of the cases in an internet freedom survey by Freedom House, which stated, ‘The same rights protected offline should also be protected online. Human rights are restricted online in 70 countries and 2022 marked the 12th consecutive year of decline in internet freedom’. But it also found that when societies push back against repression, under the right conditions, they can win. Pray for the digital rights groups who research, advocate against, and bring strategic litigation cases to overturn repression online.

The military junta continues to bomb civilians, and over 28,000 homes have been burnt down since the February 2021 coup. As order breaks down, soaring food prices cause a hunger crisis. Many are fleeing Myanmar if they get a chance. AMG has established a camp with over fifty homes for refugee families and two hostels for lone children. An AMG member met a young Christian woman at the camp who suffered watching her mother abused and scarred by her alcoholic father. Then her mother became a Christian and prayed fervently for her father. Miraculously, he came to Christ and left his drinking and drugs. As the military violence approached, her parents sent her across the border to safety. Myanmar females live in fear of being sexually assaulted by the military. One boy came into the hostel for lone children traumatised, always wanting to fight others. Now, his voice has been heard singing with other children. Pray for God’s protection over refugee camps.

The UN expects five million people to flee Ukraine. The world was already facing the highest levels of displacement on record. The war in Syria killed 400,000 and destroyed healthcare, education, and infrastructure, forcing millions to cross treacherous waters to safety. An estimated 745,000 people crossed the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh after violence erupted in Rakhine state. The rapid movement and huge influx of Rohingya refugees put massive strain on existing refugee camps like Cox’s Bazar and on the host communities who are supporting new arrivals. Every day 37,000 people across the world flee their homes due to persecution or conflict; 26 million people flee their homes annually due to climate-related disasters; and one in five refugee or displaced women are estimated to have experienced sexual violence. In this season of global recessions, pray for adequate financial donations to be given to agencies delivering life-saving aid to refugees. Pray for ample food, water, sanitation, blankets and shelters to reach the vulnerable.

More than 5,600 civilians have been killed in Myanmar since the military seized power on 1 February 2021, according to an independent research institute, which called the death toll ‘unprecedented’ in the country’s history. This number includes those killed by security forces during anti-junta protests, in clashes between the military and pro-democracy paramilitaries, while held in detention, and in revenge attacks. At least 1,831 civilians were killed in shooting deaths; the largest number occurred in war-torn Sagaing region, where junta troops have faced tough resistance from the People’s Defence Force (PDF) paramilitaries. The clashes have displaced tens of thousands of residents since the coup. A PDF member claimed that those who report paramilitary movements to the military have been targeted because the opposition is ‘handicapped in manpower and weapons’.

People's Embrace is a Facebook page helping soldiers defect. The banner says 'Assistance to police and military personnel’. Myanmar is engulfed by an increasingly deadly civil war, which began when the Tatmadaw, the armed forces, seized power last year. Now, with hundreds of volunteers, an underground network armed with Facebook and Telegram accounts is helping disillusioned soldiers and police officers to defect. ‘We advertise on Facebook that those who want to leave should contact us on Telegram.’' said Mr Lay via an online link from an undisclosed location inside the country. With the Tatmadaw out to infiltrate their network, he is wary of divulging many specifics about how they operate, but several ex-Tatmadaw soldiers have broadly described how the operation works. These activities come with massive risks: if they were captured they would be executed. Myanmar's civil war has turned increasingly violent after the overthrow of the civilian government (NLD).

On April 8, in Mandalay, approximately 40 soldiers from the Burmese Army (Tatmadaw) raided Sacred Heart Cathedral during Lent preparations searching for gold, money and ‘hidden weapons.’ They held scores of worshippers hostage for hours, including Archbishop Marco Tin Win. They claimed to have been tipped off about weapons being hidden in the clergy centre. When the vicar general of the Archdiocese explained that the only money they had was donations raised for the poor, he too was pushed into the cathedral. The ongoing assaults against churches and religious leaders should not be ignored by the international community. They intimidate Christians, they also occupy, desecrate, and loot churches across Myanmar.