Muslims await permission to reconstruct mosques eight months after March 28 earthquake

Members of the Muslim community in Mandalay Region told DVB that the regime administration continues to deny them permits to reconstruct their mosques damaged or destroyed over eight months after the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck central Myanmar on March 28.

A Mandalay resident told DVB on the condition of anonymity that they were denied permits from the Department of Religious Affairs, which is under the regime’s Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture, and the Mandalay City Development Committee. 

“We still haven’t got permission for reconstruction,” the resident said, adding that the Muslim community is in constant contact with the regime’s General Administration Department in Mandalay. 

The regime in Naypyidaw announced on April 13 that 9,643 religious buildings, including 136 mosques, were either damaged or destroyed by the earthquake which had its epicenter in Sagaing Region, but devastated neighbouring Mandalay Region, as well as the regions of Magway, Bago, Naypyidaw, and southern Shan State.

A researcher, who compiled the list of damaged mosques, told DVB on the condition of anonymity that he recorded 183 damaged or destroyed mosques: 152 in Mandalay, 15 in Naypyidaw, eight in Bago, six in Sagaing, and two in southern Shan. 

He told DVB that most of the mosques destroyed in the earthquake dated back to the 18th and 19th centuries, and that successive military regimes since 1962 had not permitted the community to renovate them, causing them to collapse during the quake due to “structural weaknesses.”