A protester was yesterday shot dead in Myanmar, in the latest round of bloodletting at demonstrations against a military coup, as the UN Security Council prepared to meet on the escalating crisis.
Despite an increasingly brutal crackdown by the military authorities that has seen more than 50 people killed, protesters took to the streets again in towns around the country to denounce the Feb. 1 coup.
The violence has brought condemnation from around the world, with the UN rights chief demanding the junta “stop murdering and jailing protesters,” and the Security Council was yesterday set to discuss the crisis.
Photo: AFP
Despite the mounting international pressure, the generals have shown no signs of heeding calls for restraint.
In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, hundreds of engineers took to the streets, yelling: “Free our leader,” in reference to ousted Burmese State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, detained by the military since the first night of the coup.
A 26-year-old man helping at barriers set up in the city to slow security forces died after being shot in the neck, medical officials said.
The killing follows the deadliest day of the crackdown so far on Wednesday, when the UN said that at least 38 people were killed, as graphic images showed security forces firing into crowds and bloodied bodies being dragged away.
There were also protests in the central town of Bago and the San Chaung district of the capital, Naypyidaw — a hotspot for rallies — where groups of demonstrators sang a song of defiance.
In the country’s north, people have crossed the border into India to escape the crackdown.
Indian police said that nine people had crossed the 1,600km frontier — three of whom were police officers who had refused to take part in putting down protests.
The junta has sought to stop news of the crackdown, choking the Internet and banning Facebook, the most popular social media platform in the country.
Live video and recorded footage are leaking out daily, and yesterday, the junta had its own Internet ban, as YouTube shut off a number of military-run channels.
Many parts of the country were also hit by power cuts yesterday, although it was not clear that this was a deliberate measure in a country where infrastructure is sometimes unreliable.
Multiple government agencies attributed the outage to a “system breakdown.”
In New York, there was a fresh twist in the saga of Myanmar’s representative to the UN.
The newly appointed ambassador resigned, saying his predecessor — sacked by the junta after dramatically condemning their seizure of power in a speech to the UN General Assembly — was still the legitimate envoy.
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