18 killed as shots fired at crowds after Myanmar protests escalate
UN condemns violence, says at least 18 killed, calls on military to halt
Yangon, Feb. 28: Security forces in Myanmar opened fire and made mass arrests Sunday as they sought to break up protests against the military’s seizure of power, and a UN human rights official said it had “credible information” that 18 people were killed and 30 were wounded.
That would be the highest single-day death toll among protesters who are demanding that the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi be restored to power after being ousted by a Feb. 1 coup.
“Deaths reportedly occurred as a result of live ammunition fired into crowds in Yangon, Dawei, Mandalay, Myeik, Bago and Pokokku,” the UN Human Rights Office said in a statement referring to several cities, adding that the forces also used tear gas, flash-bang grenades and stun grenades.
“We strongly condemn the escalating violence against protests in Myanmar and call on the military to immediately halt the use of force against peaceful protesters,” its spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani was quoted saying. An Associated Press journalist was taken into police custody on Saturday morning while providing news coverage of the protests. The journalist, Thein Zaw, remains in police custody.
That would be the highest single-day death toll among protesters who are demanding that the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi be restored to power after being ousted by a February 1 coup
Yangon, Feb. 28: Myanmar security forces opened fire on protesters on Sunday, killing at least eight in the bloodiest action so far to smother opposition to the military coup four weeks ago.
The junta is battling to contain a massive street movement demanding it yield power and release ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was detained along with top political allies at the start of the month.
Sunday brought a significant escalation in force, with fatal shootings of protesters in at least four cities around the country, as police and soldiers attempted to bring the civil disobedience campaign to heel.
The United Nations condemned the deadly crackdown, saying it had received credible information that as many as 18 people may have been killed.
“We strongly condemn the escalating violence against protests in Myanmar and call on the military to immediately halt the use of force against peaceful protesters,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the UN human rights office, said.
Three men were killed and at least 20 others injured when security forces moved on a rally in the southern coastal hub of Dawei.
Rescue worker Pyae Zaw Hein said the trio were “shot dead with live rounds”, while the injured were hit by rubber bullets.
“More wounded people keep coming in,” he said.
Two teenagers were gunned down in Bago, a two-hour drive north of commercial capital Yangon. Ambulance driver Than Lwin Oo said he had sent the bodies of the 18year-olds to the mortuary at Bago’s main hospital.
Officers in Yangon began dispersing small crowds
minutes before the slated beginning of the day’s protest, with a 23-year-old man shot dead in the city's east. “His wife is heartbroken,” Win Ko, a social worker who visited the man's widow, said. “She’s three months pregnant.” In Mandalay, an emergency doctor said that two men had died from gunshot wounds.
Elsewhere protesters took up positions behind
barricades and wielded homemade shields to defend themselves against the onslaught, with police using tear gas to clear some rallies.
Hundreds of people had been arrested by evening and transported to the city’s notorious Insein Prison, where many of Myanmar’s leading democracy campaigners have served long jail terms under previous dictatorships.
At least one journalist documenting Sunday's assaults by security forces was beaten and detained further north in Myitkyina, a city at the headwaters 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, their employer said.
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