YANGON: Protesters against last month’s military takeover in Myanmar returned to the streets in large numbers, a day after staging a “silence strike” in which people were urged to stay home and businesses to close for the day.
Security forces sought to break up some of the protests by force. Social media accounts and local news outlets reported violent attacks on demonstrators in Hpa-an, the capital of the southeastern Karen state, as well as the eastern Shan state’s capital of Taunggyi and Mon state’s capital of Mawlamyine, also in the southeast. It was not clear if soldiers used live ammunition in addition to firing rubber bullets at the demonstrators.
According to Democratic Voice of Burma, a broadcast and online news service, two young men were shot and seriously wounded in Hpa-an.
Other protests on Thursday morning proceeded peacefully, including in Mandalay, the country’s second-biggest city, and on a smaller scale in neighbourhoods of Yangon, the largest metropolis.
DVB also reported that another young man was killed and at least four other people wounded onWednesday night in what it described as a crackdown by the army in Kyaukpadaung, a town in central Myanmar.
Security forces sought to break up some of the protests by force. Social media accounts and local news outlets reported violent attacks on demonstrators in Hpa-an, the capital of the southeastern Karen state, as well as the eastern Shan state’s capital of Taunggyi and Mon state’s capital of Mawlamyine, also in the southeast. It was not clear if soldiers used live ammunition in addition to firing rubber bullets at the demonstrators.
According to Democratic Voice of Burma, a broadcast and online news service, two young men were shot and seriously wounded in Hpa-an.
Other protests on Thursday morning proceeded peacefully, including in Mandalay, the country’s second-biggest city, and on a smaller scale in neighbourhoods of Yangon, the largest metropolis.
DVB also reported that another young man was killed and at least four other people wounded onWednesday night in what it described as a crackdown by the army in Kyaukpadaung, a town in central Myanmar.
The military’s February 1 seizure of power ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party won a landslide election victory last November. It put the brakes on the Southeast Asian nation’s return to democracy that began when Suu Kyi’s party took office in 2016 for its first term, after more than five decades of military rule. Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says at least 286 people have been killed in connection with the crackdown. It says 2,906 people have been arrested, charged or sentenced at one point in connection with resisting the coup, with most remaining detained.AGENCIES
