In war torn Myanmar, thirteen villages are all that remains of the Bayingyi, a proud people who were once known for producing the finest artillerymen in Southeast Asia. They are the descendants of a long line of servants to Kings—and, indeed, of Kings. The Bayingyi are the Portuguese of Myanmar: a forgotten, forsaken people of Portuguese origin and Catholic faith, still soldiering on after five centuries of solitude. Their story is extraordinary in glory, as well as in pain.
This lost tribe of Portugal has suffered bitterly in recent years. A cruel wave of attacks—bloody pogroms that have wreaked havoc among Myanmar’s Luso-Catholics—began shortly after the military coup of 2021.
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