Six Protesters Shot Dead in Myanmar After Bloodiest Action

Protesters run after the tear gas fired as security forces suppress demonstrations against the military coup in Yangon on February 28, 2021. AFP

Yangon: Myanmar security forces shot dead at least six protesters on Sunday in the bloodiest action yet to quell opposition to the military coup four weeks ago.

The junta is fighting to contain a massive street movement demanding that it relinquish power and release the ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was arrested along with top political allies earlier this month.

Sunday brought a significant escalation in force, with fatal shootings of protesters in at least three cities across the country, as police and soldiers tried to curb the campaign of civil disobedience.

Three men were killed and at least 20 others were injured when security forces mobilized in a demonstration in the southern coastal center of Dawei.

Rescuer Pyae Zaw Hein said the trio were “shot dead with live bullets,” while the wounded were hit by rubber bullets.

“More wounded keep coming in,” he said. AFP.

Two teenagers were shot and killed in Bago, a two-hour drive north of the commercial capital Yangon.

Ambulance driver Than Lwin Oo said AFP had sent the bodies of the 18-year-olds to the morgue of the main hospital in Bago.

Officers in Yangon began dispersing small crowds minutes before the scheduled start of the day’s protest, with a 23-year-old man shot dead in the east of the city.

“His wife is heartbroken,” said Win Ko, a social worker who visited the man’s widow. AFP. “She is three months pregnant.”

Elsewhere, protesters took up positions behind barricades and wielded homemade shields to defend themselves from the attack, and police used tear gas to clear some demonstrations.

Hundreds of people had been arrested overnight and transported to the city’s famous Insein Prison, where many of Myanmar’s leading democracy activists have served long prison terms under previous dictatorships.

A man in Mandalay was rushed to hospital in critical condition after a projectile pierced his helmet and lodged in his brain.

A doctor from the city, Myanmar’s second-largest, said it was not known whether the 41-year-old had been hit by a live projectile or a rubber bullet.

At least one journalist documenting Sunday’s attacks by security forces was beaten and detained further north in Myitkyina, a city at the head of the Irrawaddy River, according to local outlet The 74 Media.

Another reporter was shot with rubber bullets while covering a protest in the central city of Pyay, his employer said.

A spokesman for the governing board did not respond to phone calls seeking comment on Sunday’s violence.

Before Sunday, at least five people had died in anti-coup riots since the army took power, including three who died on February 20.

A police officer was also killed while trying to quell a protest, the army said.

Weeks of riots

Since the military seizure of power on February 1, Myanmar has been rocked by giant demonstrations and a campaign of civil disobedience encouraging public officials to leave work.

Sunday’s crackdown followed a similar wave of violent action against angry but largely peaceful anti-coup demonstrations across the country the day before.

Several journalists documenting Saturday’s attacks by security forces were detained, including an Associated Press photographer in Yangon.

Human Rights Watch said that medical volunteers helping to treat injured protesters were also being arrested by security forces.

More than 850 people have been arrested, charged, or convicted since the coup, according to the monitoring group of the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners.

But the weekend crackdown was expected to increase that number dramatically, with state newspapers reporting 479 arrests on Saturday alone.

International condemnation of the military regime has been fierce, with the United States, the European Union, and other major powers denouncing the violence against protesters.