Myanmar bloodbath
Slaughtered teen is now a martyr for the resistance to military junta
Protesters lie on the ground after police opened fire to disperse an anti-coup protest in Mandalay, Myanmar. Among them was Angel, (19), circled, also known as Deng Jia Xi, who took cover before she was shot in the head.
DENG JIA XI wore a black T-shirt bearing the slogan “Everything will be OK” as she joined protesters against Myanmar’s coup yesterday.
The 19-year-old, who called herself Angel, was photographed in the crowd looking defiantly up at security forces. Minutes later, she was dead.
A second picture – of her body laid on a gurney – joined other horrific images flooding out of the country, documenting at least nine more victims of violent military crackdowns on peaceful rallies.
Myanmar’s security forces are increasingly turning to lethal force, and apparently shooting to kill with impunity, as they try to stem the relentless tide of protests against the February 1 military takeover that ousted and detained the country’s civilian leadership.
In Deng’s final Facebook post on Sunday, she offered to donate blood to anyone who needed it. The post gained 127,000 likes within hours as tributes poured in after her death in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second biggest city.
Many protesters are resorting to writing their emergency contact numbers and blood types on their forearms in case they are killed or need urgent medical care.
According to local media accounts and Reuters, two people were killed in Mandalay and one in the commercial city of Yangon when police opened fire yesterday. The Monywa Gazette also reported five deaths in local protests.
Another demonstrator was shot dead in the central town of Myingyan, according to student activist Moe Myint Hein.
“They opened fire on us with live bullets. One was killed, he’s young, a teenage boy, shot in the head,” Moe Myint Hein, who was wounded in the leg, told Reuters by telephone.
Graphic images also circulated of the victim’s body next to weeping loved ones.
Additional footage, which could not be verified but which spread rapidly on social media, showed medics being beaten by police officers, bodies being dragged by the security forces, and a soldier shooting at residents of a building. The security forces’ brutality was meted out a day after a regional diplomatic push to end the monthlong crisis little progress.
Myanmar’s Asian neighbours pressed its military regime on Tuesday to release detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and to stop violence against opponents of the coup.
Britain has called for the UN security council to meet tomorrow to address the spiralling violence. At London’s proposal, the UN meeting would take place behind closed doors tomorrow.
However, the military regime has so far paid scant attention to repeated condemnations by the international community of the coup and a series of demands for a peaceful, democratic transition.
While Facebook, one of the most popular social media sites in Myanmar, has banned the military and taken a robust stance against incitement to violence, many soldiers are reportedly turning to TikTok to film threats against protesters.
In a statement, TikTok said that it is “committed to promoting a safe and welcoming app environment” on its platform, but did not comment directly on the videos featuring Myanmar security forces. (© Telegraph Media Group Ltd)