(UCAN): Soldiers stopped and threatened to kill a Catholic priest from the Diocese of Pekhon in Myanmar’s Shan state. Another, senior priest recounted that “the priest was back to his parish safely after having been threatened by the soldiers.”
The priest was in a car with five other people having bought fertiliser for the parish garden, when they encountered the soldiers on the way back from Taunggyi on October 30, Church sources said.
The soldiers stopped the car for inspection and allegedly accused the priest of collecting funds for a local militia, threatening to shoot him dead if he was seen travelling again, the sources added.
The soldiers apparently suspected that the priest and his companions were planning to use a bag of fertiliser for making explosive devices.
Pekhon is one of the areas, along with Diocese of Loikaw in Kayah state, worst affected by the escalating conflict between the military and the combined rebel forces of the Karenni Army and Karenni People’s Defence Force.
More than 100,000 civilians have been forced to flee their homes and take refuge in churches, convents and makeshift camps even while the military is targeting priests and pastors, bombing and vandalising churches in the predominantly Christian region of Kayah and Chin states.
In addition, Church social workers have also been targeted, with seven working for Caritas [Karuna], arrested in Loikaw where they were helping internally displaced persons.
The latest incident comes a day after 160 buildings, including two churches, were burned down in the deserted town of Thantlang in Chin state by the military.
Nearly 10,000 people from the town had already fled into safe areas since late September due to indiscriminate attacks by the military. Priests and pastors have been arrested while many unarmed civilians have been killed.
This is not the first time minorities have been attacked and targeted in Myanmar’s ethnic regions. Christians have borne the brunt of the decades-old civil war and faced persecution at the hands of the military, which has ruled for more than five decades.
