An air strike by Myanmar’s military junta forces this week hit a convent of Catholic nuns in Myanmar’s Kayah state.
Reports reaching LiCAS News said the roof and windows of the Sisters of Reparation convent, which has been used as a retirement home for elderly nuns, were destroyed.
The bomb attack occurred past six o’clock in the morning on Thursday, March 11, according to witnesses.
The convent sits next to the Our Lady, Queen of Peace Catholic Church, which was also damaged by artillery fire in June last year.
The air strike on Thursday came days after the Our Lady of Fatima Church, also in the predominantly Christian township of Demoso, was destroyed by military bombing on March 8.
A Catholic church and a convent of nuns have suffered serious damage after being bombed. It did not happen in Ukraine, but in Myanmar, where a civil conflict has raged for over a year.
A priest who asked not to be named for security reasons said there was no firefight in the area and the attack was “planned.”
Earlier, at least eight churches in the Diocese of Loikaw, in the eastern state of Kayah, were also hit by air strikes even as Church leaders in the area have appealed to the military not to target the civilian population.
More than a dozen Catholic and Protestant places of worship have been damaged by the ongoing conflict in Myanmar since the military took power in February 2021.
At least 16 parishes in the Diocese of Loikaw have already been abandoned, said local Church officials.
On Tuesday, Radio Free Asia reported that at least five elderly people, a mother, and her two young sons were killed after shelling of a village in Sagaing region’s embattled Yinmabin township.
According to Data For Myanmar, a research group that documents the effects of conflict on communities, a total of 3,126 houses were destroyed by arson in Sagaing in the 13 months following the military coup.
The group reported that 1,739 of them were destroyed in February alone.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, the military has arrested more than 9,500 civilians since last year’s coup and killed 1,623.
