Myanmar’s security forces shot and killed at least 64 people, including a child, on Saturday, press reports and witnesses said, even as the ruling junta leader said the military would protect the people and fight for democracy. .
The protesters against the military coup of February 1 took to the streets of Yangon, Mandalay and other towns, defying the warning that they could be shot “in the head and in the back” as the country’s generals celebrated Armed Forces Day.
“Today is a shameful day for the armed forces,” Dr. Sasa, a spokesman for CRPH, an anti-junta group created by deposed lawmakers, said in an online forum.
The deaths on Saturday, one of the bloodiest days since the coup, would bring the death toll to nearly 400 civilians. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in parts of Myanmar on Saturday.
A boy who, according to local media, was only five years old, was among at least 13 people killed in Myanmar’s second city of Mandalay. The Myanmar Now news portal said 64 people had died in total across the country as of 2.30 pm (0800 GMT).
Three people, including a man who plays on a local U21 soccer team, were killed at a protest in the Insein district of Myanmar’s largest city Yangon, a neighbor told Reuters.
“They are killing us like birds or chickens, even in our houses,” said Thu Ya Zaw in the central city of Myingyan, where at least two protesters were killed. “We will continue to protest despite everything … We must fight until the junta falls.”
Deaths were reported in the central Sagaing region, Lashio in the east, in the Bago region, near Yangon and elsewhere. A one-year-old baby was shot in the eye with a rubber bullet.
Meanwhile, one of Myanmar’s twenty armed ethnic groups, the Karen National Union, said it had invaded an army post near the Thai border, killing 10 people, including a lieutenant colonel, and losing one of its own fighters. .
Myanmar’s ethnic armed factions will not stand by and allow more killings, the leader of one of the main armed groups said on Saturday.
A military spokesman did not respond to calls seeking comment on the killings by security forces or the insurgent attack on his post.
After presiding over a military parade in the capital, Naypyitaw, to mark Armed Forces Day, Major General Min Aung Hlaing reiterated the promise to hold elections after ousting elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, without giving any deadline.
“The army seeks to unite with the entire nation to safeguard democracy,” the general said in a live broadcast on state television, adding that the authorities also sought to protect the people and restore peace throughout the country.
“Violent acts that affect stability and security to make demands are inappropriate.”
Headshots
In a warning Friday night, state television said protesters were “in danger of being shot in the head and back.” The warning did not specifically say that security forces had received shoot-to-kill orders and the board had previously suggested that some deadly shootings occurred in the crowd.
But it showed the determination of the armed forces to avoid any disruption around Armed Forces Day, which commemorates the beginning of resistance to the Japanese occupation in 1945 that was orchestrated by the father of Suu Kyi, the founder of the armed forces. .
Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s most popular civilian politician, remains in detention at an undisclosed location. Many other figures from his party are also in custody.
In a week in which international pressure on the junta intensified with new US and European sanctions, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin attended the parade in Naypyitaw, having met with senior junta leaders a day earlier.
“Russia is a true friend,” said Min Aung Hlaing. There were no signs of other diplomats at an event usually attended by dozens of officials from foreign countries.
Support from Russia and China, which it has also refrained from criticizing, is important to the board as they are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and can block possible UN actions.
The shots hit the American cultural center in Yangon on Saturday, but no one was injured and the incident was being investigated, said US embassy spokeswoman Aryani Manring. The United States has led the criticism for the killings of protesters.
Protesters have taken to the streets almost daily since the coup that derailed Myanmar’s slow transition to democracy, despite the growing death toll.
“Myanmar Armed Forces Day is not an armed forces day, it is more like the day people were killed,” General Yawd Serk, chairman of the Shan State Restoration Council, told Reuters in neighboring Thailand. / Shan State Army – South.
“If they continue to shoot at protesters and intimidate people, I think all ethnic groups would not stand by and do nothing.”
Author and historian Thant Myint-U wrote on Twitter: “A failed state in Myanmar has the potential to attract all the great powers, including the US, China, India, Russia and Japan, in a way that could lead to a serious international crisis (as well as an even greater catastrophe in Myanmar itself). ”
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