Myanmar: Christians Live Between Fear and Hope

For the first time since the February 2021 coup d'état, confidence is wavering on the side of the ruling Burmese junta, and optimism has changed sides. Major cities are the target of resistance offensives, and the Burmese army has lost control of several towns. Tatmadaw – another name for the Burmese military apparatus – is now increasing the bombings

An alliance of several ethnic groups – some of which are predominantly Christian like the Chins and the Karens – claim to have mobilized more than fifteen thousand fighters and turned the situation in their favor on October 27, 2023, in Operation “1027.”

It was on that day that a vast operation was launched on several fronts, on the borders of India and China, and in the process cutting several trade routes leading to the Middle Kingdom, Myanmar's main economic partner.

The Church, for its part, is trying to hold on in the midst of the chaos. Nearly 26 of the 41 parishes in the diocese of Loikaw (Kayah state, south of the country) have been abandoned. Currently, nearly 80,000 refugees are housed in makeshift camps hastily set up by the Catholic Church.

An Increasingly Violent Confrontation

Coordination between groups opposed to the military junta has raised the level of confrontation: the alliance now claims to control 70% of the national territory, while the army is entrenched in the central part of the country, controlling the largest and most important cities (Yangon, Mandalay, and Naipidaw).

“Tatmadaw,” the powerful Burmese army, recorded its first significant defections. On November 16, an entire battalion based near the Chinese border surrendered to the alliance of armed groups. The surrender of 261 people (127 soldiers and 134 non-combatants) from the Shan State infantry battalion is the largest surrender of regular army forces since the start of the armed conflict.

The destabilization of the country has increased the already considerable flow of internally displaced people. Over the past month, more than 286,000 people have been displaced by the fighting. In total, in two years of civil war, the country has more than 2.5 million internally displaced people, who need urgent humanitarian aid, which is not authorized.

With this new outbreak of violence in Myanmar, and the exodus of populations, the situation is also worsening in the nearby Manipur, a state in northeastern India, which for more than six months has been the scene of tribal clashes between the Kuki ethnic group – predominantly Christian and allied to the neighboring Chins – living in the mountainous areas, and the mainly Hindu Meitei who dominate the Imphal plain.

It is a bloody clash – more than two hundred dead – which is rooted in the Meitei's claims to the lands where the Kukis live. If we had to summarize the situation, we could say that a war of the poor is currently taking place in one of the most disadvantaged regions of the world, where the survival of Christians is at stake amid the almost general indifference of the Western world, and the Indian government itself.