First they faced the bombings during the Myanmar civil war. Then came the devastating earthquake
MMineral of a week after the devastating earthquake MyanmarThe stench of death still grants the air in the northern city of Mingun, some miles from the epicenter.
A Buddhist monk called Monk Owen and who until recently said the principal of the Mingun’s School, The Independent: “The situation is very ugly. Many in the community have been killed, many injured, And we had no help from the outside. “
Many of the city’s religious buildings have been reduced to rubble and Matchwood. The photos show monks and other wounded during the earthquake lying outdoors, wearing bandages and being edited by the monks. More than 3,500 people have been killed The country with the tremor of magnitude 7.7.
Foreign aid teams cannot penetrate here. The only organized rescue work was undertaken by People’s Defense Force (PDF) fighters, one of the many militias that arose from the military coup of the Myanmar of February 2021, contesting the right of the army to govern.
“They are young, many of them came from cities,” says Owen. “Many of them were my students in secret lessons in which I taught them on democracy and human rights. They do not have the tools to cut the concrete.” In the 40c heat, the smell of decay is inevitable.
Elsewhere in Myanmar, the heavy machines of the international aid teams have violated the rubble to bring out the bodies. But in Mingun, as in most of the rest of the Sagaing region, west of the city of Mandalay, the earthquake hit in the heart of a war area.
The army is present in Mingun and elsewhere in the locality but confined to the fields that rarely leave because the hearts and minds of the community are with the PDF. But there are roads of the army on the roads outside the city, so the residents are bottled in their villages. “People injured in the earthquake cannot travel in hospitals in cities because they fear they are arrested or killed at road blocks,” says Owen.
Mingun is famous for his vast “unfinished pagoda”, the huge stump of a 18th century stupa (dome building) intended to be the largest in the world. Its construction was interrupted when King Bodawpaya, who had commissioned him, was said by an astrologer that would have died when he had been completed. For a long time, a draw for foreign visitors who crowded through the River Irrawaddy from Mandalay on the boat to admire it. Today, the soldiers are camped next to the powerful monument, excluding access.
Mingun was involved in civil war For years now. “People’s houses were destroyed in air raids,” says Owen. “They lived in the temples and monasteries – but those have been knocked down in the earthquake, therefore they now live in the forests. They have a fodder for food but cannot risk cooking it for grandfather the smoke of their fires.
After extinguishing in opposition to the military coup, Owen became a refined man and in 2022 Mingun was targeted in air attacks that leded the area.
In October 2024, he had his hair grows and the police run to provide false documents and fled from the country. He is now looking for asylum in France. Subsequently, Owen says that three of his tight relatives were killed by the soldiers.
“Aung San Suu Kyi (The leader deposed and imprisoned by the military junta) is our idol, we trust his one hundred percent, he worked for the good of all the Burmese whatever their religion, “says Owen.” But now it is under the control of the army “.
“Generals claim to be Buddhist but are killers,” he adds. “They are only using Buddhism to influence people. But now they have lost the support of everyone. I think they will soon run away to Russia – or that or will end up as (Muammaria della Libya) Gaddafi.”
