Resistance members detained for murder of Catholic priest in Sagaing Region

Battalion 5 of the People’s Defence Forces has arrested resistance members accused of involvement in the murder of a Catholic priest in Sagaing Region’s Shwebo Township last week. A group of assailants fatally stabbed Father Donald Martin Ye Naing Win—a priest at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in the township’s Kan Gyi Taw village—on the evening of February 14. A man living in Shwebo Township with connections to the resistance forces said the PDF battalion—commanded by the defence ministry of the publicly mandated National Unity Government—has taken around 10 suspects into custody. “All the perpetrators have been arrested, and their weapons have been confiscated. District Battalion 5 is conducting the investigation,” he said. A spokesperson for the Shwebo Township People’s Defence Organisation (PDO) said the suspects in custody were armed personnel who failed to disclose their information when the NUG was registering the details of local armed resistance groups in the area. “We thought they had registered, but this incident revealed they hadn’t,” he said. “When we checked, none of the armed personnel were in our records.” Before being killed, Father Donald Martin Ye Naing Win was reportedly accused of serving as an informant for the military regime. He was teaching local children at the Kan Gyi Taw village church, according to the Shwebo Township resident connected to the resistance forces. Around two months before his death, he had written, “NUG education is zero education” on a classroom blackboard.This provoked the displeasure of the NUG-affiliated village PDO and Public Administration Organisation (PAO), whose members petitioned the township-level PDO with a proposal to expel him from the village. Tensions have been high in Sagaing Region due to the constant threat of violence, and a bombing raid by the junta air force on Kan Gyi Taw village damaged the plantation and home of a local PAO official at the beginning of February. “The airstrike happened when there was talk about not allowing him to stay in the village,” the local source said of the priest. “The bombs hit the local PAO chief’s house and onion field, which raised suspicions.” The priest, 44, had served for seven years in the archdiocese of Mandalay. After he was killed, his body was transported to Pyin Oo Lwin, Mandalay Region for cremation. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of Myanmar issued a statement lamenting Father Donald Martin Ye Naing Win’s passing, calling for the killing to be remembered, and urging authorities to act against the perpetrators and serve justice to prevent similar incidents in future. Myanmar Now made attempts to contact officials involved in the investigation from the PDF’s Battalion 5 in Shwebo District but has yet to receive a response. According to the NUG’s human rights minister Aung Myo Min, the investigation is still in progress. “We have learned that the suspected perpetrators have been arrested. We can only comment after the findings from the (NUG) Ministry of Defense's investigation are revealed,” he said.

Resistance members detained for murder of Catholic priest in Sagaing Region

Investigators within the People’s Defence Forces are holding several unregistered anti-junta fighters for questioning after the stabbing of a Catholic cleric and alleged junta informant in Shwebo Township

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