A study by researchers collecting evidence of war crimes in Myanmar supported reports that airstrikes by the military government damaged churches in the Buddhist-dominated country’s sole Christian-majority state.
The 10 reported attacks on churches in the western state of Chin examined by the researchers are part of a broader assault on religious communities across the war-torn nation, other religious and human rights workers said.
Myanmar sank into civil war after the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.
Since then, resistance fighters from the Buddhist Burman ethnic majority have joined forces with long-oppressed ethnic minorities, some with substantial Christian populations.
Human rights agencies and United Nations investigators have found evidence that security forces indiscriminately and disproportionately targeted civilians with bombs, mass executions of people detained during operations and large-scale burning of civilian houses.
Tuesday’s report, compiled by the Myanmar Witness project of the United Kingdom-based Centre for Information Resilience, analysed in depth five claims of airstrikes causing major physical damage to churches in Chin state over several months in 2023.
Religious buildings are accorded special protected status under international law.
At least 107 religious buildings – including 67 churches and five Buddhist monasteries – have been destroyed by the military since the 2021 takeover in Chin state alone, the Chin Human Rights Organization said.
A 2023 report by the International Commission of Jurists, covering the period through April, counted 94 major Buddhist religious sites and 87 Christian ones destroyed or damaged nationwide.
Myanmar Witness cross-checks evidence such as photos, videos and witness accounts found on social media with satellite photo analysis and other methods to try to verify human rights abuses.
The ultimate aim, said project director Matt Lawrence, is “providing material to international mechanisms that can hold perpetrators of atrocities to account.”
The report did not address whether the strikes were deliberate, but wrote that the Myanmar Air Force’s “overwhelming air superiority” makes it likely that they were conducted by the government.
“Bombing churches is much more than just collateral damage,” wrote Benedict Rogers, former East Asia team leader for the human rights organization Christian Solidarity Worldwide and author of three books on Myanmar, wrote in an email interview. “Targeting them is part of a deliberate strategy,” he said.
The military regime is intolerant of non-Burman ethnic and non-Buddhist religious minorities, he said. — AP
