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MANDALAY (REUTERS, AFP) – Two people were killed in Myanmar’s second-largest city, Mandalay, on Saturday (February 20) when police fired to disperse opponents protesting a February 1 military coup, officials said. emergency workers, the bloodiest day in more than two weeks of demonstrations.
The deaths came after a young protester died on Friday after being shot in the head last week when police dispersed a crowd in the capital Naypyitaw, the first death among anti-coup protesters.
Protesters took to the streets on Saturday in various cities and towns with members of ethnic minorities, poets and transport workers among those demanding an end to the military regime and the release of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and others.
But tensions quickly escalated in Mandalay, where police and soldiers clashed with striking shipyard workers and other protesters at the Yadanarbon shipyard in Mandalay, on the Irrawaddy River.
Some of the protesters fired catapults at the police as they played cat and mouse through the riverside streets. Police responded with tear gas and gunfire, although it was not initially clear whether they used live ammunition or rubber bullets.
“Twenty people were injured and two are dead,” said Ko Aung, head of the Parahita Darhi volunteer emergency services agency.
One man died of a head injury, said media workers, including Lin Khaing, assistant editor of the Voice of Myanmar news outlet in the city, and a Mandalay emergency service.
A volunteer doctor confirmed that there had been two deaths. He said: “A gunshot to the head died at the scene. Another died later with a gunshot wound to the chest. “
A doctor at the scene confirmed that some protesters had been injured by live bullets.
“We don’t have enough drugs for them to be treated here,” he said.
A medical assistant to the doctors at the scene, who refused to give his name for fear of repercussions, told AFP: “We transferred those who were seriously injured and in critical condition to another place for intensive care, but we cannot reveal the place. “
Police were not available for comment.
Authorities have arrested hundreds of people since the coup, many of them public officials who had been boycotting work as part of a campaign of civil disobedience.
Around the protest site, empty bullet cartridges were found, as well as sling ammunition, including metal balls.
A woman received a head injury from a rubber bullet and emergency workers quickly administered first aid.
A Facebook video broadcast live by a resident at the scene appeared to transmit continuous sounds of gunfire.
“They are shooting viciously,” said the resident, who appeared to be taking refuge at a nearby construction site. “We have to find a safer place.”
Since nationwide protests began two weeks ago, authorities in some cities have fired tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets at protesters, with isolated incidents of live ammunition shots.
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