YANGON (UCAN): Bishop Celso Ba Shwe of Loikaw, which encompasses Myanmar’s Kayah state, asked Catholics “to pray and say rosary during October for peace in Myanmar as well as in Kayah state” in a pastoral letter issued on September 27.
The Kayah state has been one of the hot-beds of conflict as the military junta has looked to crush armed resistance from the combined force of ethnic groups and the newly formed People’s Defense Forces.
Dozens of churches have been hit by airstrikes and shelling and at least 16 parishes have been abandoned after priests, nuns, and followers fled their homes.
There are nearly 250,000 displaced persons in 200 camps in Kayah. More than 9,000 people from the state have taken refuge in Thailand since the fighting started in June, according to rights groups.
The Catholic Church has been providing humanitarian aid to the displaced people and supporting them with counselling. Workers also help provide education to children, especially those displaced from conflict-affected dioceses.
Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the Human Rights Council on September 26, “Each day, the people of Myanmar are enduring horrifying attacks, flagrant human rights violations and the crumbling of their livelihoods and hopes.”
Turk termed the violence “inhumanity in its vilest form” and said three specific military tactics have been systematically directed against the civilian population: airstrikes, mass killings, and burning of villages.
The military junta undertook 687 airstrikes, more than double the number carried out in the 14 months following the February 2021 military coup.
Turk said his office had documented 22 instances of mass killings of more than 10 and air strikes on a gathering in a village in central Myanmar that killed about 150 people last April and the aerial bombing of a concert in the Kachin rebel-controlled area that killed dozens last October.
At least eight out of the 16 dioceses in the country—including Loikaw, Pekhon, and Mandalay—have been affected by the ongoing fighting.
Christians make up nearly six per cent of Myanmar’s population of 54 million, a majority of them Buddhist.
