Homeless, with limited food resources and without even knowing if their relatives are still alive. The nun, winner of the Friend Heart award, tells Asia News about the conditions of the refugees who have suffered the violence of the Burmese coup junta for more than a year. Missionary Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament are only allowed to bring “spiritual comfort.” The children, who have not attended school for three years, experience one of the worst dramas.
Milan () – “Don’t think that the situation in Myanmar has improved,” warns Sister Rosanna Favero, who a few weeks ago received the Friend Heart award, a recognition instituted by the non-profit organization of the same name that awarded each year to personalities who are distinguished by their missionary work.
After a first missionary experience in Colombia, the nun has lived in the Philippines since 1992. Since 2003 she has been working so that the missionary Slaves of the Blessed Sacrament – a congregation founded in Venice in 1923 to help missionaries – can develop their work in Myanmar. “This recognition is a caress for all the young religious who strive without showing fatigue,” Sister Rosanna told with emotion. “And it’s an encouragement to move forward with courage, knowing that we have a lot of good people supporting us.”
In Loikaw, in the state of Kayah, where her sisters live, the reality is far from what the Burmese military junta, which seized power in February last year and started a brutal civil conflict, paints. As other sources have already reported, the military is forcing the displaced population to return to the villages. “But the soldiers burned down the houses and razed entire villages, and going back to work in the fields is too dangerous, because the soldiers tend to plant anti-personnel mines where they pass”, explains the nun.
The objective is to prevent the civilian population from supporting, even materially, the resistance formed by the People’s Defense Forces – the armed wing of the Government of National Unity in exile – and the ethnic militias that have been operating in the various Burmese states since independence from the British colonial empire.
That is why for two years nothing has been planted and rice, the staple of the Burmese diet, costs three times as much. No one knows how long the Loikaw Diocese’s resources will last.
Despite the fact that there are camps organized on the border with Thailand – the state of Kayah has already been the scene of ethnic clashes in the past – “the majority of the population continues to take refuge in the forests”, explains the missionary. “This is where most of the families (women with small children and the elderly) and the most painful situations are found.”
“At best you can pitch a tent, otherwise you seek shelter under the branches of the trees.” Aid distribution (even for United Nations agencies) is impossible due to roadblocks: “At most, the sisters are allowed to visit the displaced population to give them spiritual comfort.” But the children are the ones who experience one of the worst dramas: for the third consecutive year they do not attend school regularly. “In June the sisters had reopened their school, but after two weeks seven teachers were kidnapped and no one saw them again.” There are informal after-school programs, but only because the local troops allow it.
Meanwhile, the war has destroyed entire families: “One of our novices only found out a year later that her brother had been killed in combat,” says Sister Rosana. Communications are becoming more difficult because you simply can’t afford mobile phones. Until a few months ago they could be done from abroad, but later the military in power prevented it.
After the coup, the junta had asked the Norwegian telecommunications company Telenor to hand over user data. The company refused and withdrew from the country. He sold his shares to the Lebanese M1 group, which then sold them to an army-linked company, Shwe Byain Phyu. Calls, emails and messages are constantly monitored.
Sister Rosanna dedicates the Friend Heart award to her sisters in Myanmar: “For me they are a school of strength, courage and faith. They are giving more than they have, with love.”
Meanwhile, the fighting continues. In recent weeks, the coup junta has bombed Hpakant municipality, in Kachin state, with probably Russian-made planes, killing more than 100 people. At the same time, diplomacy continues to fail: while the military prevented hospital care for affected civilians, Burmese aviation chief General Tun Aung was appointed president of the ASEAN Aviation Chiefs Conference, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
