BYSTANDER DIES AS MYANMAR FORCES OPEN FIRE AT MEDICAL WORKERS’ RALLY

YANGON: Myanmar’s military opened fire on protesting healthcare workers on Thursday, killing at least one bystander as the demonstrators fled for safety to a nearby mosque.

The country has been in turmoil since the military seized power from civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1, triggering a massive uprising that the junta has sought to quell using lethal force.

But protesters have continued taking to the streets, this week using the Myanmar New Year holiday of Thingyan as their latest rallying point as the normal festivities have been cancelled.

In Myanmar’s second-largest city Mandalay, a demonstration by medical workers on Thursday turned violent when soldiers opened fire, sending them running to the mosque.

A 30-year-old man who lived in the compound was shot dead, and at least two others were injured, said a doctor who treated the wounded. “The man who died was shot from the back and it penetrated through his chest,” he told AFP. A medic who participated in the protest said he saw the arrest of six nurses and doctors.

Myanmar’s healthcare workers have been at the forefront of a nationwide civil disobedience movement, refusing to return to work under a military regime. Their absence has left many of the country’s hospitals unstaffed during the pandemic.

Security forces also arrested one of the main leaders of the campaign against military rule after ramming him with a car as he led a motorbike protest rally, friends and colleagues said.

“Our brother Wai Moe Naing was arrested. His motorbike was hit by an unmarked police car,” Win Zaw Khiang, a member of a protest organising group, said on social media on Thursday.