Myanmar’s junta has yet to issue reconstruction permits for mosques damaged by the 7.7-magnitude earthquake in March, forcing Muslims to continue attending services in improvised, temporary structures, religious leaders and worshippers said.
Residents of Mandalay and Naypyitaw, including non-Muslims, have confirmed that there has been no work to restore mosques for safe use in those cities in the two months since the earthquake struck.
Muslim organisations said at least 14 mosques in Naypyitaw and 57 of Mandalay’s 65 “old” mosques had sustained severe damage or collapsed in the disaster.
Clerics and officials from four mosques in the two cities confirmed to Myanmar Now that they had submitted applications to the relevant agencies for permission to initiate repairs, but that the decisions on their requests were still pending. They declined to provide further details.
According to Muslim religious groups, the junta has said it will approve applications for the reconstruction of collapsed and damaged mosques provided they meet the required specifications, but it remains unclear when they will issue the permits.
Temporary structures have been set up for worship at the Sunnah Jamah Mosque in Yan Aung Ward 1 in the Naypyitaw Union Territory’s Pyinmana Township
In Pyinmana Township, Naypyitaw, the Sunnah Jamah Mosque in Yan Aung (1) Ward and the Surti Mosque in Min Ga Lar Ward—where there has been no effort at reconstruction or repair since the quake—have set up makeshift thatch or tarpaulin structures for worship.
While people have gathered fallen bricks into piles at earthquake-damaged churches and Buddhist monasteries in Naypyitaw, there has been no rebuilding at those sites either, according to locals.
“For security reasons, we are repairing the collapsed brick walls of religious buildings. But to repair them, we also need donors, and temple funds cannot be used just like that,” said an official from the department of religious affairs in Za Bu Thi Ri Township, Naypyitaw. “We also need to notify and get permission from relevant organisations, so it’s taking time.”
A Muslim cleric in his 40s said that people at his mosque now had to tolerate poor acoustics and brave the wet monsoon season weather while attending worship.
“They put thatch over the demolished areas themselves and bring whatever prayer rugs they can find to worship. It’s not convenient, but they manage to make it work. This doesn’t meet our needs, but we can’t say anything, it’s just the situation,” said the cleric, who is from Mandalay’s Amarapura Township.
Another man working at a mosque said people attending worship in the makeshift structures had to worry about their health and safety because of the rainy weather and the risk of aftershocks.
“In the original established mosques, there was complete security and peace of mind,” he said. “When worshipping God, you should focus only on God and not be distracted by other things.”
The temporary structures usually consist only of thatch or tarpaulin roofs laid over a frame without walls, providing only minimal protection from the elements.
The structures are only big enough to accommodate 1,000 worshippers in Amarapura Township, where the mosque destroyed in the earthquake previously accommodated over 2,000, which has forced many to worship from their homes, the man explained.
“For us, collective worship is more important than individual worship,” he added.
He expressed hope that the authorities would grant the needed permits for reconstruction soon.
Myanmar Now previously reported the junta’s order to seal off and demolish the Gattan Mosque in Sagaing in the region of the same name, on the pretext that it was located on land claimed by the police station.
Through a succession of dictatorships since since the military first seized power in Myanmar in the 1960s, military authorities have restricted the repair or new construction of mosques by the country’s Muslim minority community.
Junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said at an April 5 meeting in Naypyitaw that monasteries and mosques damaged by the earthquake would be required to apply for permission to rebuild according to previous plans.
Junta-controlled media reported on March 30 that more than 50,000 residential houses, 10,000 administrative buildings, more than 2,500 schools, more than 700 hospitals and clinics, and a total of 5,588 monasteries, nunneries and other religious buildings had been destroyed in the quake.
However, the reports did not give separate figures for damage to mosques and churches.
The All Myanmar Islamic Religious Organisation has estimated that the partial or total collapse of dozens of mosques in Naypyitaw, Mandalay, and Sagaing in the March earthquake directly caused at least 250 deaths.
