Vatican newspaper laments ‘terrible situation’ in Myanmar, 5 years after coup
February 02, 2026
The Vatican newspaper lamented conditions in Myanmar, five years after a coup d’état brought to an end a decade of democratic rule in the Southeast Asian nation.
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In “Una inarrestabile crisi umanitaria“—the most prominent front-page article in its January 31 edition—Francesco Citterich wrote that “five years have passed since the coup perpetrated by the military junta in Myanmar, which plunged the Southeast Asian country into civil war and chaos. And the legislative elections concluded last week—the first since 2020 and called by the ruling generals—were certainly not enough to restore a semblance of peace to the torn country.”
“However, the UN, many Western countries, international observers, and human rights organizations have harshly criticized the vote as a legitimization of the military regime and characterized by a crackdown on dissenting voices and on the candidate lists, which were largely composed of pro-military parties,” Citterich continued. “Many political groups, especially those in the opposition, were not allowed to participate. The main opposition parties have long since been dissolved, and their leaders are in prison.”
Citterich lamented the civil war precipitated by the coup, and “above all indiscriminate attacks and bombings by the government army, which according to independent local monitoring groups have already caused the deaths of at least 90,000 people, many of whom are unarmed civilians, with a catastrophic humanitarian and economic impact.”
It is, wrote Citterich, a “terrible situation, made even worse by a humanitarian crisis with millions of displaced people and people suffering from hunger.”
Myanmar, a nation of 58 million (map), is 74% Buddhist, 9% Christian, 9% ethnic religionist, and 4% Muslim; the nation’s constitution grants a special status to Buddhism.
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