Wednesday’s images and footage show a corpse surrounded by pools of blood on the street, while protesters run to take cover.
The United Nations says the death toll from the uprising has risen to 50, although activists say the figure is too high.
“Today has been the bloodiest day since the uprising,” Special Envoy Christine Schraner Bergner said in a briefing on Wednesday. He said about 1,200 people have been detained, while many relatives are not sure where they are being held.
“Every tool now available is needed to prevent this situation,” Bergner said. “We need the unity of the international community, so member countries need to take appropriate action.”
CNN The ruler reached out to the military regime via email but has not yet received a response.
Protesters have been demanding the release of democratically elected officials, including the country’s leader, Ungang San Suu Kyi, who is currently in custody. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy Party (NLD) won a landslide victory in the November election; Military leaders allege voter fraud but have not provided any evidence for their claims.
Bergner said in discussions with the military, he warned that the UN Security Council and member states were likely to take drastic action. “The answer was: ‘We are accustomed to sanctions, and in the past we have escaped those sanctions.’
“When I warned them they would go into solitude, the answer was: ‘We just have to learn to walk with a few friends.’
Security forces – including members of the Army’s Light Infantry Division who have long been involved in human rights abuses in conflict zones across the country – launched their deadly crackdown on peaceful protesters this week.
Today, the country is like Tiananmen Square in most of its major cities, Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, said on Twitter.
In one instance, Myanmar security forces captured emergency services with their guns, baton butts and kicked them in the head, according to the Working Group of Political Prisoners Support Organization (AAPP).
The AAPP released the video Wednesday and said in a statement that the leaked video was from Yangon’s North Oklahoma. The video gives a glimpse of the brutal methods used to deploy security forces.
In the footage, three charities are told to get out of their ambulance van at gunpoint, and then put their hands behind their heads and kneel on the floor.
Two uniformed police officers started beating the men in the head with their guns and sticks and even kicked them. After a while a group of police officers will join the police force and members of the army and proceed to violently kill the three charitable personnel.
“The military treats peaceful protesters in Yangon like a battlefield. The military is re-creating terror,” the APP said.
CNN does not know why the charity workers were stopped by security forces.
The APP said live ammunition was used against protesters in at least seven cities and towns on Wednesday.
Among those killed was a 19-year-old girl from Mandalay, the second largest city, whose picture was flooded on social media sites, showing her wearing a T-shirt in which “everything will be fine.” Reuters reported that security forces shot him in the head.
In Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, witnesses told Reuters that at least eight people were killed when security forces opened fire with automatic weapons early in the evening.
“I heard very constant firing. I fell asleep on the ground, they fired a lot and I saw two people killed on the spot,” protesters Kung Pya Sone Tun, 23, told Reuters.
The Monyava Gazette reported that six people were killed in another town in central Monyava. Others were killed at various locations, including Mandalay, the northern city of Hpakant and the central city of Mangyan, according to Reuters.
World leaders have called for Myanmar’s elected leaders to be reinstated.
Rare praise came from a speech by Myanmar’s ambassador to the UN, Kyaw Mo Tune, last week, who said he represented the country’s civilian government and called on the international community to use “any means necessary” to help end the uprising.
On Wednesday, Myanmar’s deputy ambassador U Tin Maung Naing resigned after being named by military rulers to replace Kwai Mo Tune, who is clearly fighting.
The U.S. State Department condemns the deadly violence against peaceful protesters and says the United States is reviewing policy options to respond to the country’s recent escalation.
“We are appalled by the horrific violence against the Burmese people for a peaceful call to restore civilian rule. We call on all nations to speak with one voice to condemn the brutal violence perpetrated by the Burmese military against its people.” “Promote responsibility for military action that has claimed so many lives in Burma,” Ned Price said in a briefing.
Pope Francis on Wednesday also weighed in on the deteriorating situation in Myanmar, calling for the release of political prisoners and an end to violence in the country.
“I also appeal to the international community to take action so that the aspirations of the people of Myanmar are not suppressed by violence. The youth of that beloved country have a chance to hope in the future where hatred and injustice are met and reconciled,” he said during his weekly audience.
CNN’s Paul Lynn Woodwood, Akanksha Sharma, Michelle McCluskey and Jennifer Ditto contributed to the report.
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