43 religious representatives killed since coup: AAPP report

By Admin 29 Jun 2024

DMG Newsroom
29 June 2024, Sittwe

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said 43 religious representatives have died at the hands of Myanmar’s military regime from February 1, 2021, to June 28 of this year.

Since the 2021 coup, most of them were killed by airstrikes, followed by shootings. Seventeen were killed in airstrikes and 12 were gunned down, according to the AAPP.

On June 22, a monk from Sakama Village in Mandalay Region’s Myingyan Township was shot dead while driving an ambulance to send a patient from the village to hospital for emergency healthcare.

On June 19, the prominent Buddhist monk Sayadaw Bhaddanta Munindabhivamsa, 78, was shot dead as he travelled by car through central Mandalay region, in an incident state media initially blamed on its opponents before the Min Aung Hlaing admitted that the regime was responsible.

U Gambira aka U Nyi Nyi Lwin, a prominent figure in the 2007 Saffron Revolution, told Myanmar Now that members of the Sangha (Buddhist clergy) should not allow the regime to arrest and kill members of the clergy as they please.

Several religious buildings have also been damaged or destroyed by junta airstrikes and artillery fire in conflict zones across the country.

On May 15, U Pinnavumsa, 42, the abbot of Dhammadipadi Monastery in Arakan State’s Minbya Town was injured in a junta air raid. The abbot of the village monastery in Kainggyi Village, Maungdaw Township, was also injured in a junta bombing raid on June 8.

One Arakan State resident said: “Monks were injured when junta warplanes dropped bombs on religious buildings in Arakan State. Monks were also shot dead in other places by security forces. This is unacceptable.”

The AAPP said it was able to confirm the identities of 43 religious representatives killed by the regime over the past three-plus years since the coup, but that there could be other cases that went unreported.

According to the AAPP, at least 5,351 democracy activists and ordinary citizens have died at the hands of the regime since the 2021 putsch.