By night, they're terrified of being dragged from their beds by the juntaĪctivist group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners has identified 48 people who have died because of the violent crackdown on protesters. Sai Aung Main/AFP/Getty Imagesīy day, Myanmar's protesters are defiant dissenters. Protesters hold up signs demanding the release of detained Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a demonstration against the military coup outside the French Embassy in Yangon on February 19, 2021. They now feel as if their future has been taken away.ĭonning masks and flimsy plastic helmets, young people are overwhelmingly at the front lines of the protests, building barricades and staring down security forces. The largely leaderless movement, however, is spearheaded by young people who have come of age in the years since the military relinquished a half century of direct rule in 2011, allowing for elections and greater democratic reforms. Thousands of people from all sections of Myanmar society have joined the protests and ongoing civil disobedience movements aiming to destabilize the new military regime. “The protesters were no longer in the normal stage of the protest but were armed with explosive devices and resorted to violence,” the report said, without providing further evidence. On Friday, the Myanmar Police Force said in the Global New Light, that “rioters armed with two weapons believed to be smoke grenades” were found to be part of protests on Wednesday. The military junta previously claimed to be showing restraint towards what it termed “anarchic mobs.” The state-run Global New Light Of Myanmar said “severe action will be inevitably taken” against “riotous protesters.” Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesĬNN reached out to the ruling military regime via email but has not yet received a response. “If anything, security forces appear increasingly brazen in their deployment of lethal weapons with each passing day.”Ī demonstrator shows a bullet cartridges to the camera during a protest against the military coup in Mandalay, Myanmar on March 3, 2021. “We are seeing a surge in unlawful killings, including apparent extrajudicial executions, with no apparent attempt to rein in the use of lethal force,” Gil said in a statement. Other clips showed police beating detained protesters and in one piece of footage, security forces were seen beating three medical charity workers with their guns and batons.Īmnesty said the “harrowing scenes now unfolding across Myanmar shows mounting evidence of more textbook brutality” under the command of coup leader Gen. Images and footage, captured by bystanders, local reporters and citizen journalists, showed bodies lying in the street surrounded by pools of blood as protesters run to take cover. Wednesday was the bloodiest day in four weeks of protests, as security forces opened fire on crowds of people across the country, killing at least 38 people. “Everything points to troops adopting shoot to kill tactics to suppress the protests, and with silence from the military administration, there is a growing consensus that this has been authorized by the government,” Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Research, Emerlynne Gil, said in a statement Thursday.
The lethal wounds and bullet holes puncturing the bodies of the young people, as seen in photographs and detailed in conversations with family members, are part of a growing body of evidence indicating the junta’s security forces are now shooting to kill. These are just three of more than 54 people believed to have been killed by Myanmar’s military junta since countrywide peaceful protest against the February 1 coup began. Nay Myo Aung, 16, killed by a bullet that pierced his lung. Ma “Angel” Kyal Sin, 19, fatally shot in the head. Zin Ko Ko Zaw, 22, killed by a bullet to the head.
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