Following the bombing of a predominantly Mennonite village in western Myanmar earlier this month, the World Council of Churches (WCC) this week issued a public condemnation of the ongoing violence.

While the conflict has raged for decades and counted many communities among its victims, the ruling junta frequently targets ethnoreligious minority communities.

The WCC, referencing numbers collected by the Myanmar Peace Monitor, claimed that the junta has struck more than 1,000 civilian locations in the last 15 months. These numbers are corroborated by the findings of other watchdog organizations, such as the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which has tracked 7,807 deaths by the junta since it took power in 2021.

“These ongoing attacks are grave violations of international law, of human dignity and the sanctity of life,” said WCC general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr. Jerry Pillay. “We express our deep solidarity with the Mennonite church and with all the suffering communities in Myanmar.”

Myanmar is currently ruled by a military junta that forcefully seized control from a civilian government in February 2021. The Tatmadaw, as the military is called locally, controls only about 20% of the country; the remainder consists of highly contested territory or areas under the control of various rebel militias, estimated at 42% of the country.

The Tatmadaw continues to support an ethnoreligious genocide against the Rohingya Muslim community, mostly concentrated in Rakhine state. More than a million have fled the persecution since the genocide escalated in 2017. In the 18 months leading up to July 2025, nearly 150,000 Rohingya refugees fled to neighboring Bangladesh, representing the largest influx since 2017 and indicating continued danger for ethnoreligious minorities in Myanmar.

In March 2025, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released a report criticizing the Tatmadaw for its systematic repression of religious minorities and urging the international community to increase attention to the plight of the persecuted in Myanmar.

“The country has seen the displacement of over 3.5 million people in recent years,” the USCIRF report noted, “including more than 90,000 in Christian-majority Chin State, 237,200 in Kachin State, and one million Muslim-majority Rohingya refugees.”

Though a large majority of the population is ethnic Burman and an even greater percentage is Buddhist, the communities that make up the remainder are well-established, well-organized, and, for the most part, predate the modern state by centuries.

In many cases, Myanmar’s ethnic minorities have taken on a distinct religious identity as well. About 20% to 30% of ethnic Karen are Christians, while other groups, such as the Chin, are more than 90% Christian. This overlap of ethnic and religious identity has created a volatile situation for believers.

Representing an extremist interpretation of Buddhism, the Burmese military has a long history of violence against the people of Myanmar, including against ethnic and religious minorities like the Muslim-majority Rohingya and Christian-majority Chin.