As Zin Nwe Phyo and her classmates settled down with their teachers, bullets and bombs hit the school and children ran outside to hide. ‘Soldiers fired right through the school walls, hitting the children,’ said one eyewitness. ‘Pieces flying out of the main building injured children in the next building. There were big holes blown out of the ground floor.’ Their attackers were Russian Mi-35 helicopter gunships carrying powerful rapid-fire cannon and rockets which destroy people, vehicles and most buildings. Since Myanmar's military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government, air strikes like this happen routinely in a civil war at a stalemate across much of the country. Zin Nwe Phyo and many others died that day. Resistance to military attacks on civilian targets has increased humanitarian needs and increased opportunities for Christian workers to share about Christ. Local missionaries care for children sheltering with them, opening the way to share the gospel with their parents.

When Pope Francis visited the DRC he said that the rich world must realise that people are more precious than minerals in the earth beneath them. Speaking to dignitaries at the presidential palace, he talked of ‘terrible forms of exploitation, unworthy of humanity, where vast mineral wealth fuels war, displacement and hunger. Hands off the DRC. Hands off Africa. Stop choking Africa: it is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered.’ Congo has some of the world's richest diamond deposits as well as gold, copper, and other minerals. ‘The poison of greed has smeared its diamonds with blood,’ he said. An estimated 5.7 million people are internally displaced in Congo; 26 million face severe hunger, largely due to armed conflict. Half of the population are Roman Catholics, and the Church plays a crucial role in running schools and health facilities, as well as promoting democracy.