The new bloody day in Burma can be measured in two images: the first, occurred in the streets of the Oakkala district, in the city of Rangoon. A group of soldiers cornered a protester and shot him in the head. Then one of the soldiers kicked the man’s lifeless body a couple of times. The second image features a 19-year-old girl named Kyel Sin who had taken to the streets of Mandalay, the country’s fourth-largest city, to protest against the Burmese army’s coup. The young woman wore a black T-shirt with a message: “Everything will be fine.” He died this Wednesday afternoon when he was shot in the head. Kyle kept a sheet in his pocket on which he had written his blood type and asked that his organs be donated if he died.
At least 38 people were shot dead and more than 100 wounded in various cities in Burma. Soldiers and policemen have reloaded live ammunition against the protesters in a new day of protests after the military seized power on February 1.Next to the image of Kyel Sin’s bloody body on the ground were another corpse, that of Myo Naing Lin (37 years old), who was shot in the chest. They are the two victims of Mandalay. Almost 100 kilometers away, in another city, Monywa, seven people were killed and, according to data reported by the Myanmar Now newspaper, an estimated 70 were injured after security forces attacked with bullets, grenades, and tear gas.
In Myingyan, in central Burma, more than 100 soldiers shot and dispersed protesters. Zin Ko Ko Thaw, 22, died of a gunshot wound to the head. In Rangoon, the economic center of this Southeast Asian country, a total of seven died. Among them the executed man.
THE BIGGEST PROTESTS SINCE 2007
Since 2007, such large protests have not been seen in Burma. Then thousands of citizens, led by Buddhist monks, called for lower prices to reduce increasing poverty rates. They called it the Saffron Revolution because of the color of the monks’ robes. The generals of the Military Junta that governed the country sent the army to shoot out the protests. Hundreds of civilians died. Now, 14 years later the Military Junta is back in power after a coup. Leading the new government is General Min Aung Hlaing, who applauded the crackdown on protesters in the Saffron Revolution and is now ordering his soldiers to shoot protesters calling for restoring a democracy they have barely enjoyed a decade.
Last Sunday, in the previous bloody day, 18 protesters died. It has already been more than thirty since the protests began, and an exact death toll remains to be known because the count goes up as the hour’s pass and more gunshot wounds fail to recover. Also, according to the Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners, more than a thousand people have been detained since the protests began. Among those arrested is Aung San Suu Kyi the ousted leader of Burma who remains under house arrest along with the rest of the leaders of her party the National League for Democracy (NLD) including the president, Win Myint.
Suu Kyi, who appeared by videoconference before the Burmese justice on Monday, faces a charge of violating the Export and Import Law after the police, in the search of her house after the military coup on February 1, found devices of communication walkie-talkies that supposedly had been imported illegally and were being used by the security team of the leader. Under Burmese law, these charges could carry a prison sentence of up to three years. The new military junta also filed a second charge against her last week for allegedly violating pandemic regulations during last year’s elections.
