Four Christians were injured – two so badly they required hospital treatment – when a local Buddhist mob attacked and destroyed their homes in the Sanaing region on 7 July.
The day before, the four believers, all new converts, had been summoned to the Teetaw village monastery by the abbot, where they were given the option of returning to Buddhism or being banished from the village. All four refused to deny Christ.
Myanmar hit the headlines in September in what UN human rights officials have called ‘textbook ethnic cleansing’ of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar. 310,000 people fled to neighbouring Bangladesh to escape the burning of their villages. The Rohingya are seen as illegal migrants from Bangladesh, despite historical evidence to the contrary. In August, a Rohingya insurgent group attacked security sites, killing 12 people. This resulted in the army, militia groups and local security forces responding with ‘clearance operations’ to deal with the security threat from that group.
