Kyaw Ye Lynn
13 March 2021•Update: 14 March 2021
YANGON, Myanmar
As anti-coup protests rage on in Myanmar, at least 11 more people were killed by the military junta on Saturday, according to media reports.
Five people were shot dead and 10 more injured in a violent crackdown by troops in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city, according to local news outlet Voice of Myanmar.
Two women were among the civilians killed by security forces in Mandalay’s Mahar Aung Myay area, the report said.
A rescue worker in Twantae, a town near Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon, said police and army personnel fired rubber and live bullets at a crowd of protesters that gathered at a public hospital to force security forces out of the facility.
“We have collected four dead bodies so far,” she told Anadolu Agency.
Two more protesters, including a 19-year-old student, were killed in Pyay, a town about 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of Yangon, on Saturday, local media reported.
Troops fired live rounds to disperse a demonstration against the military’s Feb. 1 power grab, according to reports.
Myanmar’s military, which seized power by overthrowing the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, has unleashed brutal force against protesters demanding a return to democratic rule.
The number of people killed by security forces is now above 80, with more than 2,000 detained across the country.
Several countries and global organizations, including the UN, have voiced concern over the deteriorating situation in Myanmar and condemned the junta’s vicious actions.
“The junta’s security forces are committing acts of murder, imprisonment, persecution and other crimes as part of a coordinated campaign, directed against a civilian population,” Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said earlier this week, urging UN member states to rally together against “a murderous illegal regime.”
