Teenage protesters met with lethal force on Myanmar’s deadliest day
More demonstrators die at anti-coup rallies as security forces appear to step up shoot-to-kill policy
DENG JIA XI yesterday wore a black T-shirt bearing the slogan “Everything will be OK” as she joined protesters against Myanmar’s coup.
The 19-year-old 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.
Yesterday was the deadliest day in Myanmar since demonstrations began, with the UN recording 38 people killed by security forces.
The officers are increasingly turning to lethal force, and apparently shooting to kill with impunity, as they try to stem protests against the Feb 1 military takeover that ousted and detained the country’s civilian leadership.
Britain called for the UN Security Council to meet tomorrow to address the violence as soldiers and police officers used tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets and live rounds on protesters. “It’s horrific, it’s a massacre. No words can describe the situation and our feelings,” Thinzar Shunlei Yi, a youth activist, said.
Four children were reportedly among those killed yesterday.
Deng was named on social media and by local journalists. In her final Facebook post on Sunday – when at least 18 died – 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 now 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, 25.
“They opened fire on us with live bullets. One was killed, he’s young, a teenage boy, shot in the head,” Moe Myint
‘One was killed, he’s young, a teenage boy, shot in the head’
‘We have guidelines that state we do not allow content that incites violence’
Hein, who was wounded in the leg, told Reuters by telephone.
Graphic images also circulated of the victim’s bloodied body next to weeping loved ones.
Additional footage, which could not be independently 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 for filming a patrol. The security forces’ brutality was meted out a day after a regional diplomatic push to end the month-long crisis made 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.
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 to Vice World News, Tiktok said that it was “committed to promoting a safe and welcoming app environment” on its platform, but did not comment directly on the videos featuring Myanmar security forces.
It went on: “We have clear community guidelines that state we do not allow content that incites violence or misinformation that causes harm to individuals, our community, or the larger public. Tiktok will continue to follow these principles globally.”