October 2, 2026
The 19 million people already displaced by violence and persecution in Myanmar have been joined by another 8 million internally displaced individuals since a deadly earthquake struck on March 28, Baptist World Aid Director Marsha Scipio said.
Of the 25 Baptist churches in cities most affected by the earthquake, 15 church buildings were destroyed, and the remaining 10 received significant damage, Scipio said.
Many of those churches housed people who already were displaced, Scipio added. More than 100 people sought refuge in the sanctuary of Kachin Baptist Church in Mandalay until its top floor collapsed, she said. Those individuals are now sleeping on the ground outside the church building.
She quoted the pastor of Karen Baptist Church in Sagaing, one of the churches destroyed by the earthquake, as saying: “We urgently need drinking water and electricity. Our water sources are damaged and contaminated. We have no electricity. We didn’t have light and power to charge our phones to communicate with one another.”
The earthquake killed more than 3,000 people—including at least one Baptist pastor—and injured at least 4,500 others, she noted.
Scipio presented an update on the Baptist response in Myanmar and other areas in need as part of a Baptist World Alliance Global Impact Church online briefing on April 3.
The earthquake—and the 11 military airstrikes on vulnerable areas that followed, until the government agreed to a temporary ceasefire on April 2—compounded suffering in a country already in dire straits, she reported.
The “severe and swift reduction” in U.S. Agency for International Development funding was already creating challenges among BWA partners, such as a Baptist convention that ministers at a camp on the Myanmar/Thailand border housing more than 30,000 refugees, Scipio said.
“Baptist World Aid has received over $250,000 in requests from our Baptist partners working along the border and inside Myanmar, for everything from food supplies to solar panels to provide power to water pumps to bring clean water into the camps,” she said.
Baptists within the country are responding to their neighbors in need, Scipio said.
Churches in the Myanmar Baptist Convention collected an offering in response and have a disaster relief committee assessing needs. The Kachin Baptist Convention has delivered food and provided emergency medical assistance.
In consultation with Baptists in Myanmar, Baptist World Aid and its global partners identified emergency food distribution and temporary shelter as priority needs.
Specifically, Baptist World Aid hopes to provide $625,000 to supply emergency food kits Baptists can distribute to families at 25 church-based distribution centers and $465,000 for temporary shelter packages with blankets, mats, mosquito nets, and cooking utensils for 5,000 families, Scipio said.
Hungarian Baptist Aid will send two team members to Myanmar to help guide the disaster response, she added.
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This story appeared in The Baptist Standard.
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