Myanmar death toll mounts amid protests

Security forces in central Myanmar opened fire on anticoup protesters on Saturday, killing at least two people, according to local media. A human rights group said mounting violence since the Feb. 1 military takeover has killed at least 550 civilians.

Of those, 46 were children, according to Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Some 2,751 people have been detained or sentenced, the group said.

Threats of lethal violence and arrests of protesters have failed to suppress daily demonstrations across Myanmar demanding the military step down and reinstate the democratically elected government. The coup reversed years of slow progress toward democracy in the Southeast Asian country.

The Myanmar Now news service reported government forces fired at demonstrators in Monywa city, killing at least two people. One video posted on social media showed a group of protesters carrying away a young man with what appeared to be a serious head wound, as gunfire sounded. His condition wasn’t immediately known.

At least seven people were injured in the shooting, two of whom sustained severe wounds and were taken into custody by soldiers, Myanmar Now said, citing a member of a local rescue team.

Late Friday, armed plainclothes police took five people into custody after they spoke with a CNN reporter in a market in Yangon, the country’s largest city, local media reported citing witnesses. The arrests occurred in three separate incidents.

Two women reportedly shouted for help as they were being arrested, Myanmar Now reported. One police officer, who was carrying a gun, asked if “anyone dared to help them,” a witness told the news service.

“They pointed their pistols at everyone — at passersby and at people in the store,” a witness said of two police officers, who forcibly took away two other women in the market.