Thousands of Christians Flee Myanmar Bombardments’
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
(Worthy News) – Thousands of Christian villagers have reportedly fled bombardments in Myanmar since the coup that ousted the nation’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi, on February 1.
Christian aid workers told Worthy News that the Myanmar Army shelled the Papun and Nyaunglebin districts in the volatile Karen State.
The bombings forced the mainly- Christian ethnic Karen villagers “to escape into the inhospitable mountainous jungle with what little they could carry,” said Barnabas Fund, a Christian aid, and advocacy group.
The group told Worthy News that a 93-year-old woman “who cannot walk is among the Christians displaced to the remote jungle” by military bombardments in Karen State.
Even before the coup, the army increased its “ceasefire violations in Karen State, since December, Barnabas Fund stressed.
The military was “attacking villages with shells, mortars and grenade launchers to clear land for a program of building new roads and military installations which began in 2018.”
CLASHES REPORTED
Reports about the violence against the Christian minority in this mainly Buddhist nation of 57 million people came after police and protesters clashed in the most violent day of demonstrations against the military coup so far.
A doctor said one woman was unlikely to survive a gunshot wound to the head. Three other people were treated for injuries from suspected rubber bullets after police fired guns, mostly into the air, and used water cannon to try to clear protesters in the capital Naypyitaw.
State television reported injuries to police during their attempts to disperse protesters – its first acknowledgment of the demonstrations taking place in the country.
The incidents also marked the first bloodshed since the military, led by army chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, overthrew Suu Kyi’s newly elected government in February. They detained her and other politicians from her National League for Democracy (NLD).
The military alleged that the NLD won by fraud – an accusation dismissed by the election committee and Western governments.
Late on Tuesday, police in Myanmar raided the NLD’s headquarters in Yangon, two elected NLD lawmakers said. The raid was carried out by about a dozen police personnel, who forced their way into the building in the commercial capital after dark, they said.
THOUSANDS PROTEST
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in protest since Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy, were overthrown only three months after winning a landslide election in November. They have been replaced with a military government headed by Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services Min Aung Hlaing.
“The chief minister of Karen State, Daw Nan Khin Htwe Myint, was among those arrested on Monday 8 February for voicing her opposition to the military coup, ” Barnabas Fund added.
For decades, the military-controlled government of Myanmar, also known as Myanmar, oppressed mainly-Christian ethnic people groups, including Karen, Kachin, and Chin, according to rights watchers. The military also came under pressure for its treatment of the mainly-Muslim Rohingya peoples, including a small minority of Christians.
Protesting against the crackdown seemed to become more dangerous Wednesday after Myanmar’s military tightened their post-coup grip on power.
Soldiers raided and ransacked the headquarters of detained leader Suu Kyi’s party after dark on Tuesday, as police shot water cannon, tear gas, and rubber bullets in a sudden escalation of force against the protests sweeping the country.
A doctor in Naypyidaw also confirmed the use of live rounds that left two people critically injured, news reports said. Footage showed protesters in the capital were undeterred, returning to a blockade on a major highway on Wednesday morning.
US CONCERNED
The United States, which has led international condemnation of the army takeover, renewed its call for freedom of expression in Myanmar — and for the generals to step down.
“We repeat our calls for the military to relinquish power, restore democratically elected government (and) release those detained,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
In Mandalay, the country’s cultural capital and the seat of Myanmar’s pre-colonial monarchy, witnesses told media they saw security forces fire tear gas directly at protesters.
Many of those targeted were waving the red flags of Suu Kyi’s NLD party, witnesses said.
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