Striking workers leave homes after junta ultimatum

MANDALAY, Myanmar — Residents of Myanmar’s secondbiggest city helped striking railway workers move out of their statesupplied housing Saturday after the authorities said they would have to leave if they kept supporting the protest movement against last month’s military coup.

Mandalay residents carried the workers’ furniture and other household items to trucks, van and pickup trucks.

The state railway workers last month went on strike as key and early supporters of the civil disobedience movement against the Feb. 1 coup that toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The military regime has sought to force them back to work through intimidation, which included a nighttime, gunfiring patrol last month through their housing area in Mandalay and a raid in the railway workers’ housing area in Yangon.

Protests against the coup continued Saturday in cities across the country, including in Mandalay and Yangon.

The coup reversed years of slow progress toward democracy in Myanmar after five decades of military rule. In the face of persistent strikes and protests against the takeover, the junta has responded with an increasingly violent crackdown and efforts to severely limit the information reaching the outside world.

Internet access has been severely restricted, private newspapers have been barred from publishing, and protesters, journalists and politicians have been arrested in large numbers.

The independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners has verified 235 deaths and has said the actual total “is likely much higher.” It said it has confirmed that 2,330 people have been arrested or charged since the coup, with 1,980 still detained.

In addition to using lethal force to try to break up demonstrations, the security forces have been carrying out a campaign of harassment, stealing from homes they raid, said the group, which also charged that security forces have used people they arrested as human shields as they sought to break up demonstrations.

Numerous reports on social media, including videos, have shown security forces vandalizing cars parked on the street.

The U.N. agencies UNICEF and UNESCO, along with the private humanitarian group Save the Children, on Friday issued a statement criticizing the occupation of education facilities across Myanmar by security forces as a violation of children’s rights. It said security forces have reportedly occupied more than 60 schools and university campuses in 13 states and regions.

Associated Press Demonstrators gather in Yangon, Myanmar’s most populous city, to protest the military coup that ousted the government last month. At least 235 people have died in the protest movement.