[ad_1]
Myanmar’s pro-democracy activists pledged on Thursday (March 4) to hold more demonstrations after the United Nations said 38 people had been killed in the most violent day of unrest since last month’s military coup.
Police and soldiers opened fire with live bullets on Wednesday without warning, witnesses said.
The bloodshed came a day after neighboring countries called for restraint following the military’s overthrow of the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
“We know that we can always be shot and killed with live bullets, but there is no point staying alive under the junta, so we choose this dangerous path to escape,” activist Maung Saungkha told Reuters.
“We will fight the junta in any way we can. Our ultimate goal is to root out the junta system,” said Maung Saungkha, who said his group of the Nationalities General Strike Committee planned to hold a protest on Thursday.
Protesters flee as police fire tear gas in Sanchaung, Yangon, on March 3, 2021. (Photo: Naung Kham)
Social media posts by other activists said that at least two other demonstrations were also planned in parts of Yangon.
United Nations special envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, said in New York that Wednesday was the “bloodiest day” since the February 1 coup with 38 dead, bringing the total to more than 50 while the army tries to consolidate its power.
LEE: UN says 38 dead in Myanmar’s ‘bloodiest’ day since the coup
A human rights group and some media have reported different numbers of wounded and dead after the violence on Wednesday. Among the dead were four children, an aid agency said. Local media reported that hundreds of protesters were arrested.
A spokesman for the ruling military council did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party said in a statement that flags would be flown at half-staff at its offices to commemorate the dead.
Schraner Burgener said he warned Myanmar’s deputy military chief Soe Win that the military is likely to face heavy measures from some countries and isolation in retaliation for the coup.
“The response was: ‘We are used to sanctions and we survive,'” he told reporters. “When I also warned that they would isolate themselves, the response was: ‘We have to learn to walk with few friends.’
READ: Widespread sanctions against Myanmar would cause suffering to ordinary people – Vivian Balakrishnan
Police fire tear gas at protesters in Sanchaung, Yangon, on March 3, 2021. (Photo: Naung Kham)
The UN Security Council will discuss the situation Friday in a closed-door meeting, diplomats said.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price said the United States was “shocked” by the violence and was evaluating how to respond.
The United States has told China that it expects Beijing to play a constructive role, the spokesman said. China has refused to condemn the coup, calling it “a major cabinet shakeup” in Chinese state media.
The European Union said that the shooting at unarmed civilians and medical workers constituted a clear violation of international law. He also said that the military was intensifying its crackdown on the media, with a growing number of journalists arrested and charged.
READ: With violent repressions, is Myanmar going through the point of no return? A comment
‘EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE’
In Yangon, witnesses said that at least eight people died on Wednesday, while local media reported that six died in the central city of Monywa.
“I heard so many continuous shots. I lay down on the ground, they shot a lot,” protester Kaung Pyae Sone Tun, 23, told Reuters.
Save the Children said four children were killed, including a 14-year-old boy who Radio Free Asia reported was shot dead by a soldier in a passing military truck convoy. The soldiers loaded his body into a truck and left, according to the report.
The security forces that broke up the protests in Yangon detained about 300 protesters, the Myanmar Now news agency reported.
Images of a 19-year-old woman, one of two shot dead in Mandalay, showed her wearing a T-shirt that read “Everything will be fine.”
Protesters lie on the ground after police opened fire to disperse a protest against the coup in Mandalay, Myanmar, on March 3, 2021. Among them, 19-year-old Angel (bottom left), also known as Kyal Sin, took cover before being shot in the head. (Photo: REUTERS / Freelance Photographer)
Yangon police ordered three doctors to get out of an ambulance and beat them with butts and truncheons, a video aired on US-funded Radio Free Asia showed. Reuters was unable to independently verify the video.
READ: ‘How are they going to survive?’ – Myanmar’s coup cuts off the livelihoods of migrant families
The military justified the coup by saying that their complaints of electoral fraud in the November 8 vote were ignored. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party overwhelmingly won and obtained a second term.
The electoral commission said the vote was fair.
The leader of the board, Major General Min Aung Hlaing, has promised to hold new elections, but has not given a deadline.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 75, has been held incommunicado since the coup, but appeared at a court hearing by video conference this week and was in good health, a lawyer said.
