Two Catholic priests who helped journalists report on the bombing of a Catholic Church in Burma have disappeared.
Dawng Nawng and La Jaw Gam Hseng have not been seen since Saturday evening, when they were said to be at an Army base in Mong Ko in the northern Shan state.
Their church in Mong Ko, home to many Christian ethnic Kachin people, was bombed by Burma Army troops at the beginning of December.
The building had been occupied last year by the Army as a strategy in their fight against Burma's long-running ethnic civil war. Mong Ko is a war-torn heartland for the insurgents.
The latest fighting erupted in November, causing more than 50,000 refugees to flee to northern Shan state and the border with China.
The Army chose a church as a base because sacred buildings are respected by ethnic troops and are not usually attacked.
After leaving the church, the Army then bombed it to pieces itself. This was to make sure there was no ammunition or other useful weaponry left behind by the government troops that could later be used against them by the insurgents.
According to the state newspaper The Global New Light of Myanmar, the Army then rebuilt the church and more than 10,000 displaced people have returned home since the insurgents were driven out.
However, the local Christian community remained outraged by the bombing.
The two assistant priests took the decision to help journalists report the church bombing and bring it to international attention, in spite of the risks to their personal security.
Morning Star News reports that they helped three reporters from newspapers in Yangon, including the Democratic Voice of Burma, The Irrawaddy and the Kumudra Journal.
The church community realised their priests had gone missing when they failed to show up at Christmas Mass.
One of the journalists told Morning Star News: "Gam Hseng helped us with everything.
"He talked about fighting conditions and how the Burma Army's jet bombed the church and the town. He said the church was hit by bombs and bullets fired by the Burma Army."
The priests were "disappeared" after pictures were published of damaged churches and also schools. "So I think it was because they helped us and talked to us," he said.
