Myanmar township a battle zone as martial law enforced
PLUMES of smoke rose on March 17 above a part of Myanmar’s biggest city which has turned into a battle zone under martial law, with burning barricades and security forces firing at unarmed anticoup protesters.
Traumatised residents have fled Hlaing Tharyar, an industrial neighbourhood in Yangon that has become a flashpoint in a nationwide uprising against the military’s coup nearly seven weeks ago.
The junta has increasingly deployed heavy force to quell the demonstrations, with more than 200 protesters reported to have been killed across the country.
March 14 was the deadliest day so far, with a local monitoring group documenting more than 70 people killed – the bulk of them in Hlaing Tharyar.
The junta on March 14 imposed martial law on the township and later on other protest hotspots – effectively placing nearly two million people under the complete control of military commanders.
Residents – many of them migrant workers – have since fled back to their home states, piling their belongings and families onto flat-bed trucks and the backs of motorbikes.
Those who stayed reported warlike scenes.
“There were constant gunshots the entire night and we didn’t get to sleep,” one resident said, adding that people were worried about even walking on the streets for fear of getting targeted by security forces.
Another resident, a medical student, said there was a heavy military and police presence around the main parts of the township.
He said: “They were checking cars, motorbikes and the mobile phones of people going around the streets.
“If they detected anything related to politics and the civil disobedience movement, they arrested people,” he said, adding that authorities also threatened residents to make them remove barricades around the area.
Hardline anti-coup protesters had camped on a bridge leading into the township’s main roads on March 16 evening, wearing hard hats and gas masks, and carrying shields.
They had erected barricades made out of tyres, wood, sandbags and bamboo poles.
Some of those barricades were burned, leading to heavy black smoke rising above the mostly deserted streets.
Some protesters threw petrol bombs at the security forces, but otherwise appeared defenceless as they hid behind makeshift shields.
In a residential area of a neighbouring township, video footage verified by AFP showed non-stop volleys of gunfire lasting roughly 15 seconds.
In recent days, Hlaing Tharyar has become “an urban war zone”, said International Federation for Human Rights deputy secretary Debbie Stothard.
She said: “We heard a lot of people have been arrested in the last few days but it is really difficult to get information on what is happening on the ground.”