St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Banmaw, a town in Myanmar’s Kachin State, was destroyed by fire on Sunday, March 16, the eve of the feast day of the saint to whom the church is dedicated.
According to testimonies sent to Vatican’s Fides News Agency, the fire broke out at around 4:00 p.m. local time during military operations in the area allegedly conducted by soldiers of the State Administration Council (SAC), Myanmar’s ruling military junta.
There has been no official statement from the SAC regarding the incident.
This was the second fire reported at the diocesan compound in recent weeks. On February 26, the priests’ residence, a newly constructed three-story diocesan office building, and a high school were also burned.
These events led to the displacement of the clergy, including Bishop Raymond Sumlut Gam, the local ordinary of Banmaw.
Fr. John Aung Htoi, in a message posted on social media, said the cathedral, built by the Missionary Societies of St. Columban around the 1950s, was a “historic cathedral and a landmark of Bahmo, Kachin State.”
He appealed for prayers “for the peace of our country, for those victims and internally displaced people.”
The Diocese of Banmaw, located in a mountainous region bordering China, was erected in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI.
It is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Mandalay and covers an area of 10,741 square kilometers.
Before the escalation of the conflict, the region was home to more than 407,000 people from various ethnic groups, including over 27,000 baptized Catholics.
Recent figures indicate a Catholic population of approximately 35,908, served by 32 priests in 14 parishes.
