According to CNA, government soldiers ransacked and burned a Catholic church in a village in eastern Myanmar on Wednesday.
According to video footage posted by the Karenni National Defense Force (KNDF), a local rebel group fighting the military junta that took over the country’s government on Feb. 1, 2021, the flames completely destroyed St. Matthew Catholic Church in Dawnyaykhu in Phruso Township in Karenni State.
A KNDF official said, “On June 14th, the military burned down more than four houses in Dawnyaykhu village. On June 15th, the military burned down the Catholic Church in the village for no apparent reason at around 3 pm”.
Between government troops and KNDF rebels, heavy fighting erupted in the village on June 10-15.
As smoke and flames pour out of the windows, the KNDF shows its soldiers approaching the white church building. In the background, gunshots can be heard. Isolated fires can be seen burning in various locations throughout the building.
According to a source, neither the village nor members or leaders of the church were involved in any of the local fighting. After occupying the church and looting valuables, including food collected for the local poor, the soldiers were allegedly ordered to burn it down.
One of 11 ethnic armed groups fighting the junta is the KNDP, which has refused to sign a nationwide cease-fire agreement.
The Diocese of Loikaw in eastern Myanmar has 38 parishes, including St. Matthew’s. Because of the increased fighting in the area, priests, nuns, and parishioners have abandoned 16 parishes in the diocese, according to UCA News.
According to the report, government military shelling and airstrikes have hit at least nine churches in the diocese.
Under the junta’s repressive control of the country, 1,900 people have died and another 1 million have been displaced, according to Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who spoke to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday.
Thousands more people have been arrested, she said, and an estimated 14 million people require humanitarian assistance.
Myanmarese people are still “trapped in a cycle of poverty and displacement, human rights violations and abuses,” according to Bachelet.
“What we are witnessing today is the systematic and widespread use of tactics against civilians, in respect of which there are reasonable grounds to believe the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes,” she said.