Another Baptist pastor shot dead in Myanmar; US gov’t urged to take action
Myanmar’s military junta has shot and killed a Baptist pastor in the Christian-majority Chin state, the third killing of a pastor there in about three and a half months, according to a religious freedom group that is pressing the U.S. government to act.
Soldiers opened fire on the Rev. Dal Thawn Tuang, 49, who served as assistant pastor at Lamzang Baptist Church, hitting him three times close to the Kapte bridge as he made his way home from religious duties in a neighboring village on Monday, the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern (ICC) reports. The bullets hit his chest, abdomen and thigh.
Tuang, who spent 22 years at the church, leaves behind his wife and two children.
His funeral took place Wednesday in Lamzang Village, roughly 5.5 miles from Tiddim town. The Tiddim Baptist Convention sent a condolence letter honoring him as “a faithful servant of God.”
A physical examination found bullet wounds in three places on Tuang’s body, pointing to a deliberate killing rather than an accident, according to the Burma Research Institute (BRI).
A separate, conflicting account from The Irrawaddy’s Burmese-language edition said that escaped prisoners of war from the Tiddim area were behind the fatal shooting. Last Sunday night, roughly 80 military prisoners broke out of custody kept by People’s Defense Force-Zoland, a resistance group, setting off clashes between the two sides, it said.
ICC President Shawn Wright said the killing followed “the recent murder of Pastor William and our brother Nam Ceu,” calling it “a concerning trend,” and asking Christians in the West to pray for the grieving families and for the Burmese church.
“Our staff is praying for Pastor Tuang’s family and his church,” Wright said. “We ask Christians in the West to lift up these grieving families in prayer and pray for the Burmese Church to be united and encouraged during the ongoing violence.”
BRI board chair Rev. Robin Stoops, a former associate general secretary at American Baptist Churches USA, called the killing part of “an escalating war against Christians.”
BRI President Zo Tum Hmung said the killings amount to “crimes against humanity and war crimes” that U.S. President Donald Trump should formally recognize, and called on the White House to press the junta to free detained pastors and State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Soldiers killed the Rev. William, who served as pastor of Chungcung Baptist Church for more than 25 years, and a fellow Chin Christian, Nam Ceu, after holding the pair since their arrest in May.
Sources told BRI the two were killed over alleged ties to the Hakha Chinland Defense Force, a local militia fighting the junta.
Chungcung village has come under repeated attack since the 2021 coup, and its Baptist church was looted and destroyed that October.
More than 340 churches and Christian-owned properties have suffered damage or destruction since the coup, and 149 Christians were killed and 218 imprisoned between 2022 and 2025, according to Open Doors.
A BRI report from January found a sustained assault on the Thantlang area that destroyed 21 of the town’s 22 churches and displaced its entire population.
Violence against Christians, churches and civilians has intensified since junta chief Min Aung Hlaing took office as president on April 10, after a junta-controlled parliament elected him the previous week.
The Chin, an overwhelmingly Baptist ethnic group in Myanmar’s Christian-majority state, face persecution tied to their ethnicity and faith, and many pastors have been arrested or tortured, or have fled to Mizoram state in India.
Rights advocates have called on the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to factor religious persecution into their engagement with the junta.
The larger fighting has triggered airstrikes, shelling, mass displacement and disrupted aid to Kachin, Chin, Karen, Kayah and parts of Shan states, home to roughly 2 million Christians.
The military controls about 14% of the country’s territory.
