SOLDIERS, POLICE KILL 51 MORE IN MYANMAR

Soldiers and police officers shot and killed at least 51 people in Myanmar over the weekend as they pressed their campaign of attrition against protesters who have defied them in cities and towns across the country.

Despite weeks of killings by the security forces, a nationwide civil disobedience movement — which has paralyzed much of the economy as well as the government’s operations — shows no sign of waning a month and a half after the Feb. 1 military coup that ousted the civilian leadership.

“The world is upside down in Myanmar,” said Tin Tun, who said he saw military personnel in the city of Mandalay commandeer an ambulance and drive off with a woman who had been shot in the head by a fellow soldier.

“We must fight until we win,” said Tin Tun, 46. “The regime must step down. There is no place for any dictator here in Myanmar.”

Late Sunday afternoon, another wave of killing began in the Hlaingthaya district of Yangon, which is heavily populated by factory workers and where the protests against military rule have been among the most aggressive. A large force of soldiers and police officers was deployed to the township and fatally shot at least 31 protesters, according to a doctor at Hlaingthaya General Hospital. It was the highest daily death toll in one location since the coup.

On Sunday evening, the ruling junta declared martial law in the district — the first such declaration since the takeover — allowing the military to assume all authority in the township from police.

The declaration came after two Chinese-owned factories in the district caught fire and the Chinese Embassy released a statement calling on the government to take strong action to “stop all terrorism activities.” The embassy said that many Chinese employees had been trapped and injured by the fires, whose cause had not been established.

Hours later, in a separate declaration, the government also placed Yangon’s Shwepyitha district, another heavily industrial area, under martial law after large protests were held there Sunday.

In a Facebook Live video, Mahn Win Khaing Than, one of the leaders of a self-declared civilian government formed in hiding, urged ethnic rebels who have fought the army for decades to join the protest movement in working toward a federal democracy to replace military rule. He called this “the darkest moment of the nation and the moment that the dawn is close.”

Mahn Win Khaing Than, who was the speaker of the upper house of Parliament before the coup, said in the video posted Saturday that his group, the Committee Representing the Myanmar Parliament, had spoken by Zoom with leaders of the armed ethnic groups that control much of northern Myanmar.