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The United States on Tuesday ordered the departure of non-emergency US government employees and their families from Myanmar due to civil unrest that followed the February military coup, the State Department said.
Myanmar has been in crisis since the military toppled an elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1, detaining it and reimposing military rule after a decade of tentative steps toward democracy.
The State Department said in a travel notice that on February 14 it had authorized the voluntary departure of Myanmar for non-emergency US government employees and their families, and that it now “updated that status upon orderly departure.”
The White House on Monday condemned the killing by Myanmar’s military government of dozens of civilian protesters and renewed a call for the restoration of democracy.
The United States also said Monday that it would immediately suspend all engagement with Myanmar under a 2013 trade and investment agreement until the return of a democratically elected government.
Earlier this month, the United States imposed sanctions on two members of Myanmar’s ruling junta, including the chief of police and two military units, and blacklisted two conglomerates controlled by the Myanmar military.
At least 512 civilians have died in nearly two months of protests against the coup, 141 of them on Saturday, the bloodiest day of the riots, according to the advocacy group the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners.
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