by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - Continuing its onslaught against non-Buddhist minority faith groups, the Myanmar military junta killed a seven-year-old child and two other people in an attack on the historic Christian village of Mon Hla in the Sagaing region on November 23, the Barnabas Fund reports.
Myanmar entered a new phase of its devastating civil war when the rogue Burmese army deposed the democratically elected government in a military coup on February 1 last year; the military has since gone on the rampage, killing and displacing Christians in particular.
Two hundred Burmese junta troops were involved in the joint land and air attack on Mon Hla, in which a 40-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man were murdered along with the child, Barnabas reports. Mon Hla is a Bayingyi village with around 3,000 mostly Christian residents who are descended from Christians who settled in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
In addition to the killings, the military burned down 200 of Mon Hla’s 700 buildings, including a church and a Christian school, Barnabas said.
Calling for prayer, Barnabas requested in its report: “Ask the Lord to draw close to the bereaved in Mon Hla and wipe away their tears. Pray that the people of the Bayingyi villages will put their trust in His strength and He will be their shield. Ask that there will be peace in Myanmar.”
Myanmar ranks 12th on the US Open Doors World Watch List 2022 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.