Troops fire at funeral as Myanmar mourns bloodiest day since coup

People cry as they attend the funeral of Kyaw Win Maung, who was shot and killed during a protest against the military coup, in Mandalay, Myanmar, on March 28, 2021. REUTERS / Stringer

Myanmar security forces opened fire at a funeral on Sunday, witnesses said, as people from across the country gathered to mourn 114 people killed the day before in the worst crackdown on protests since last month’s military coup.

Mourners fled the shooting at a service for 20-year-old student Thae Maung Maung in Bago, near the commercial capital Yangon, and there were no immediate reports of casualties, three people in the city told Reuters.

“While we were singing the song of revolution to him, the security forces just came and shot us,” said a woman named Aye who was in the service. “People, including us, run away when they open fire.”

The advocacy group of the Political Prisoner Assistance Association recorded the deaths of 12 other people in incidents elsewhere in Myanmar on Sunday, bringing the total number of civilians killed since the February 1 coup to 459.

Thousands of villagers in a border area fled to Thailand after military airstrikes against one of the ethnic militias that have intensified attacks since the coup, witnesses and local media said.

There were no reports of large-scale protests in Yangon or Mandalay, which suffered most of the victims on Saturday, Myanmar Armed Forces Day. But people in Mandalay surrounded a police station late at night, accusing security forces of arson after five houses caught fire, residents said.

Reuters was unable to reach police there for comment.

At least six children between the ages of 10 and 16 were among those killed on Saturday, according to press reports and witnesses. Protesters call the victims “Fallen Stars.”

ISOLATION CALL

The bloodshed prompted renewed Western condemnation. The UN special rapporteur for Myanmar said the army was carrying out a “mass murder” and called on the world to isolate the junta and stop its access to weapons.

Foreign criticism and sanctions imposed by some Western nations have so far failed to sway military leaders, as have almost daily protests across the country since the junta seized power and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. .

“We salute our heroes who sacrificed lives during this revolution and we must win this REVOLUTION,” posted on Facebook one of the main protest groups, the General Strike Committee of Nationalities (GSCN).

Intense fighting also broke out between the army and some of the two dozen armed ethnic groups that control swaths of the country.

Some 3,000 people fled to neighboring Thailand after military planes bombed areas controlled by the Karen National Union (KNU) militia near the border, an activist group and local media said.

In an army airstrike on Saturday, at least three civilians were killed in a KNU-controlled village, a civil society group said. The militia previously said it had invaded an army post near the border, killing 10 people.

Clashes also broke out on Sunday between another armed group, the Kachin Independence Army, and the army in the northern Hpakant jade mining area. Kachin forces attacked a police station and the military responded with an air assault, Kachinwaves media reported.

There were no reports of casualties.

A spokesman for the board did not respond to calls seeking comment on the killings or the fighting.

Major General Min Aung Hlaing, leader of the junta, said during a parade to mark Armed Forces Day that the military would protect the people and fight for democracy.

‘RINGING HOLLOW’

Countries like the United States, Great Britain, Germany and the European Union once again condemned the violence.

“It’s terrible, it’s absolutely outrageous,” US President Joe Biden told reporters in Delaware. “I have reportedly received a large number of people who have been killed completely unnecessarily.”

The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, called on Myanmar’s generals to step back from what he called a “senseless path” of violence against their own people.

“We will continue to use EU mechanisms, including sanctions, to target the perpetrators of this violence and those responsible for turning the clock back on the path of democracy and peace in Myanmar,” Borrell said in a statement.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Twitter: “We will not tolerate the brutal course of action of the military against the people of Myanmar.”

UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews said funds, such as oil and gas revenues, and access to weapons, should be cut from the board.

“Words of condemnation or concern are frankly hollow to the people of Myanmar as the military junta commits mass killings against them,” he said in a statement.

The senior US military officer and nearly a dozen of his counterparts said that a professional military must follow international standards of conduct “and is responsible for protecting, not harming, the people it serves.”

Myanmar’s military seized power saying the November elections won by Suu Kyi’s party were fraudulent, a claim dismissed by the country’s electoral commission. Suu Kyi is being held at an undisclosed location and many other figures from her group are also in custody.

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