Myanmar Buddhist nuns caught in the crossfire of war

On an evening in late June, as the clamour of the day’s gunfire faded, Daw Khema,* a 44-year-old Buddhist nun and teacher, was preparing for bed at her nunnery in Mogok when a group of armed men appeared at her door. “It was a group of TNLA soldiers, forcing us to leave the nunnery immediately,” she told Myanmar Now on September 11. Fierce fighting had erupted in the gem-rich town of Mogok in the final week of June as the powerful Ta’ang National Liberation Army—a member of the Brotherhood Alliance alongside the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Arakan Army—advanced to take the strategic town from junta troops. Daw Khema, who has been a monastic for more than 20 years, had been teaching Buddhist literature in the Mandalay Region town for over a decade. Her young novice students, mostly from the Ta’ang ethnic group, were drawn to the nunnery from remote villages in northern Shan State to pursue a formal education. As this year’s monsoon season set in, with two warring groups struggling for control of Mogok, artillery shelling and aerial assaults by the regime’s air force rocked the town. Despite the dangers, Daw Khema was resolved not to give up the nunnery she had built and the young nuns she had been mentoring. “We weren’t that afraid of heavy artillery, but the warplanes [were different],” she said. “When the warplane came roaring above us, we hid under the bed, reciting all the prayers we could remember until it left.” Daw Khema had hoped that the nuns’ religious status would offer them some immunity from the conflict and a degree of safety at the hands of armed groups. According to international laws including the Geneva Conventions, ratified by Myanmar alongside the majority of states globally, places of religious significance are afforded protection during war under the rubric of cultural heritage. Myanmar junta soldiers lie dead in a Buddhist ordination hall in the village of Theyetkone, Nawnghkio, northern Shan State, in April 2024. Their makeshift outpost, set up in a pagoda compound, was overrun by resistance fighters from the Mandalay branch of the People’s Defense Forces, under the command of the National Unity Government (Supplied) Nonetheless, the Myanmar military has a precedent of using religious buildings and schools as stations for troops in their fight against regime opponents, and as sites for the torture and killing of civilians. “We are two completely different peoples by nature,” Daw Khema commented, referring to the soldiers and the Buddhist nuns. “We live by peace while they live by guns.” As conflict closed in on Mogok, Daw Khema and her juniors were powerless to resist the TNLA’s demand. “They told me to leave my nunnery because they wanted to use it as a base to fight,” Daw Khema said, recalling that the soldiers wanted to attack junta troops stationed at a hilltop monastery some 60 metres from her building. “I told them we could not leave in the middle of the night. At first, they were insistent. After some back-and-forth, they agreed to wait until the next morning,” she said. By the break of dawn, Daw Khema and the other residents left the nunnery to take shelter in a local woman’s house at a safe distance from the combat zone, passing the sleeping soldiers outside. The nun said that she was not alone in being forced to vacate her home during the fighting in Mogok, noting a monk in the neighbourhood whose monastery was overtaken by junta troops. “The monk told me he could not say no, otherwise they could kill him,” she told Myanmar Now. Daw Khema explained that she had appealed to the TNLA troops to spare the nunnery but said that the soldiers were forceful in their demand. “I understand this is a war in which both [parties] are determined to win. So they are using any means they have access to,” she said. “However, we become the victims in the middle,” she continued. “All we want is peace, but we have no say in this. It is even more sad that the war is between our own people, we cannot do anything.” Young Buddhist nuns on their morning alms round in Yangon (Myanmar Now) The ghostly road to Mandalay Mandalay, a military stronghold and the major commercial hub of Myanmar’s heartland, is where most residents escaping Mogok and surrounding areas have fled due to the semblance of safety it provides compared to other smaller towns. However, as the TNLA and its Brotherhood Alliance allies came closer to full control of Mogok in late June, the town’s residents were prevented from leaving. Daw Khema was eventually given permission to leave, but the day they said she could go—July 19—was the day before Buddhist Lent Day, which as a monastic she was required to spend at a temple or monastery. Even after she pointed this out, her request for an earlier departure date was flatly denied. “I told them I needed to leave earlier so I could observe Buddhist Lent Day, but they were rude and turned me back, saying I had to stay where I was,” she told Myanmar Now. “I wanted to leave the town for so long, but they wouldn’t let us through the security gate,” she said, adding that she was told it was for the sake of her safety. The nun said she found this reasoning unconvincing, suggesting that TNLA troops wanted the civilian population to remain in the town after their takeover to act as “human shields,” with a view to reducing the severity of military retaliation. Finally, after three tense weeks of waiting, she was permitted to exit Mogok. She found passage with two visitors to the town, an elderly man and his daughter, who had also been prevented from leaving until then. The nun said it took 48 hours to reach Mandalay, a journey that normally takes five hours by bus in peaceful times. To avoid getting caught up in armed clashes along the usual road to Mandalay through Madaya town, the travellers detoured for hundreds of miles through Sagaing Region, via Kawlin and Tigyaing townships, staying overnight at village monasteries along the way. “The road to Mandalay was mostly calm, but was long and ghostly, with no other vehicles or humans,” Daw Khema recalled, adding that the only people she saw as they passed through the desolate landscape were members of anti-regime groups manning checkpoints. Ethnic Ta’ang Buddhist nuns from northern Shan State in a Yangon nunnery in October 2019 (Ye Aung Thu / AFP) Worry for a new generation The nun arrived alone in Mandalay; her young novices were taken back by their parents in rural areas as war descended on Mogok. Most of her former students had disrobed and been sent to work by their families, while a few remained as nuns, she said. Still in touch with the girls, Daw Khema described how they continued to call her wanting to come back. She had learned that one former nun had been sent by her parents to the Myanmar-China border town of Muse to work. “She told me she was sent there to work as a maid because her father was arrested by the Myanmar military, so she had to pay off debt that the family owes,” Daw Khema said. “I fed and nurtured them properly, they were strong and healthy with me.” The nun expressed sorrow at having to give up her novices, who were mostly in their early teens, while acknowledging that she would have few means to support them in her current situation. “I’m sort of relieved I am alone now, otherwise I would bear responsibility for about 30 people—I would have to worry about accommodating and feeding them, and about their safety,” she said. In predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, nuns do not receive a level of respect or support from the public equal to their male counterparts, who have powerful societal influence, including amongst military leaders and politicians. In the aftermath of the 2021 coup, when millions of ordinary people are in desperate need, the situation for nuns—estimated to number upwards of 60,000—has significantly worsened, leaving many struggling to receive sufficient donations for their survival. In the conflict, Daw Khema has lost not only her nunnery, but the individuals she hoped would continue in her tradition. “It’s a big loss [for Buddhism], since not a lot of children want to become nuns,” she said. Just days after her departure from the nunnery, it was reduced to rubble during a battle, Daw Khema said. Numerous monasteries in the town have also been damaged. In eastern Mogok, a nun was killed by shelling on June 27. Neither the Myanmar military nor the TNLA could be reached for comment. *Name has been changed for security reasons

Myanmar Buddhist nuns caught in the crossfire of war

As conflict between the military regime and Myanmar’s rebel armies rages on, the country’s often forgotten Buddhist nuns scramble to find peace

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