‘Do not forget Myanmar’ says Pope in plea for victims of war

In a ‘message of compassion and hope’, Myanmar’s bishop said that after four years the civil war was a ‘polycrisis’ in which multiple crises overlap and exacerbate one another.

Pope Leo asked Catholics to remember Myanmar in their prayers for peace, urging the international community to act to end years of civil war.

At his general audience in St Peter’s Square on Wednesday, the Pope asked pilgrims “to join me in prayer for those who suffer as a result of armed conflicts in different parts of the world”.

“I am thinking in particular of Myanmar and I urge the international community not to forget the Burmese people and to provide the necessary humanitarian assistance,” he said.

This appeal came a week after a statement by the Catholic bishops of Myanmar addressing what they called a “polycrisis”.

In their “message of compassion and hope” issued on 29 October, they said that after four years the war was “not a single tragedy” but “what experts call a ‘polycrisis’, in which multiple crises overlap and exacerbate one another”.

The statement identified “armed conflict, natural disasters, displacement, economic collapse, and a deep social fracture” causing “the suffering of the people [that] breaks our hearts more than anything else”.

Nevertheless, the bishops insisted that Myanmar could “find the embers of hope in the ashes of pain”. They called for “compassion in action, gently spoken truth, and tirelessly striving for peace”.

“May our wounded and battered nation rise again, not only with buildings, but with new hearts. And may our children one day be able to say ‘they did not give up on peace, and so we found our way home’.”

The bishops called for dialogue between diverse interests and the warring parties, condemning the fact that “humanitarian access is restricted” for much of the country.

United Nations agencies report that more than three million people in Myanmar have been displaced by the conflict. The Church has witnessed people “seeking shelter under trees, in rice paddies, monasteries, and makeshift shelters, without food, water, education, or security”, the bishops’ statement said.

Cities in the conflict zones have “turned into ghost towns” and entire villages in earthquake-stricken areas have been razed to the ground, causing “deep trauma and fear” among the population who now face “a daily struggle for survival”.  Women and children have borne the heaviest burden, they said.

“Children’s future is uncertain,” and women “carry the pain of losing their families”, while some “must give birth or raise infants without shelter or medical care”. Women “hold communities together”, the bishops said, “cooking for many, praying in the darkness, and comforting the bereaved”.

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