Military junta chief Min Aung Hlaing threw a lavish ceremonial dinner Saturday whereas his troops reportedly shot lifeless greater than 100 individuals in the streets and compelled hundreds of individuals to flee into neighboring Thailand, throughout a weekend of indiscriminate terror and bloodshed that was extensively condemned internationally.
Images posted on social media confirmed the coup chief dressed in a bow tie and a white, medal-laiden jacket strolling a purple carpet, greeting attendees and sitting all the way down to a meal to mark Armed Forces Day.
The annual vacation commemorates the start of the military’s resistance in opposition to Japanese occupation in World War II and the junta staged a present of power with a army parade. Saturday was additionally the total moon day of Tabaung, the top of Myanmar’s lunar calendar and an necessary time in Buddhism that ought to have been celebrated with festivals and visits to pagodas.
Instead, troopers and police launched into a rampage, killing a minimum of 114 individuals — together with youngsters — in 44 cities and cities throughout the nation on Saturday, in keeping with a tally by the unbiased Myanmar Now information outlet. It was the deadliest day for the reason that military seized energy in a coup and overthrew the nation’s elected authorities on February 1.
United States (*100*) Joe Biden joined a refrain of worldwide condemnation Sunday, saying the scenario in Myanmar was “terrible,” and described the actions of the army as “absolutely outrageous.” The US has imposed sanctions on a number of of the generals, together with Min Aung Hlaing, and two military-owned conglomerates. On Monday, the Biden administration introduced the suspension of all diplomatic commerce engagement with Myanmar.
Throughout Monday, crackdowns and shootings continued throughout the nation and a minimum of 14 individuals had been shot lifeless, the Advocacy group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) stated. At least 510 individuals have been killed for the reason that coup, in keeping with AAPP.
“Amidst crackdowns in Kyauk Myaung, Tamwe township, Yangon Region, people banged pots and pans in protest,” AAPP reported. “At that time, the junta forces told people they will arson neighborhoods if people continue.”
CNN obtained video displaying army personnel coming into neighborhoods to cease the banging of pots and pans, which have change into a standard type of protest.
Meanwhile, Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha stated his authorities has ready for a possible inflow of refugees from neighboring Myanmar. “We have prepared the areas if the influx happens (so we know) where to keep them,” Prayut stated throughout a press briefing. “We don’t want to have any influx into our area, but we certainly have to take human rights issues into our consideration.”
Thailand has hosted tens of hundreds of refugees in 9 essential camps alongside its border with Myanmar for 3 many years, following armed conflicts, human rights abuses and persecution of ethnic minorities by the Myanmar army.
About 3,000 individuals fled from Myanmar’s southeastern Karen state over the border to Thailand Sunday, after army jets carried out a bombing raid, in keeping with the Karen Women’s Organization (KWO), which operates inside Karen state and refugee camps in Thailand.
As properly as indiscriminate killing of unarmed individuals, brutal acts had been extensively reported over the weekend. A 40-year-old Mandalay resident was shot and burned alive by army troops, in keeping with Myanmar Now, which quoted residents and an evening guard in the sufferer’s neighborhood. There had been additionally stories of safety forces taking pictures into residential buildings, nighttime raids and arrests, and looting and destruction of personal property.
In a speech throughout a parade in the capital Naypyidaw Saturday, Min Aung Hlaing stated that the army would defend the individuals and attempt for democracy.
As residents tried to mourn their lifeless on Sunday, the killings and acts of violence continued, nevertheless. Reuters reported that safety forces opened fireplace on the funeral service of 20-year-old scholar Thae Maung Maung in Bago close to the business capital Yangon. Mourners had been compelled to flee, three individuals in the city advised the information company.
Children weren’t spared from the carnage. At least six youngsters between the ages of 10 and 16 had been amongst these killed on Saturday, in keeping with information stories and witnesses, Reuters reported. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) stated 35 youngsters have been killed by junta forces for the reason that coup.
“An 11-year-old boy, an 11-year-old girl, two 13-year-old boys, a 13-year-old girl, three 16-year-old boys and two seventeen-year old boys, all reportedly shot and killed. A one-year-old baby girl gravely injured after being struck in the eye with a rubber bullet. These were the latest child casualties on the bloodiest day in Myanmar since the military takeover,” stated UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore in an announcement.
“Millions of children and young people have been directly or indirectly exposed to traumatizing scenes of violence, threatening their mental health and emotional wellbeing.”
The AAPP stated 13 individuals died on Sunday as junta forces used stay ammunition and grenades in opposition to civilians and opened fireplace outdoors a hospital in the largest metropolis Yangon, injuring one workers member on Sunday.
“The junta is using grenades, not just live rounds but machine-guns in urban areas, to create a combat zone of peaceful residential homes,” AAPP stated.
CNN can not independently confirm the stories.In the nation’s borderlands, three civilians had been killed and 10,000 had been compelled to flee their properties and go into hiding in the jungle, the KWO stated in an announcement on its official Twitter web page.”Many villagers are actually hiding in terror in the jungle and greater than 3,000 have crossed into Thailand to take refuge,” the KWO stated, including that it feared extra assaults on villages in the state.
The Karen National Union (KNU), the armed ethnic group that controls components of the southeastern area in Myanmar, advised CNN that extra airstrikes had been performed by the junta Sunday.
Padoh Saw Taw Nee, a spokesperson for KNU, stated the air strikes occurred round 4 p.m., native time Sunday close to the Thai border.
Armed insurgent teams have been preventing the army on and off for the previous 70 years in the nation’s ethnic states however preventing in some areas has elevated for the reason that coup.
Military jets killed a minimum of two members of the KNU’s militia, stated David Eubank, founding father of the reduction group Free Burma Rangers, including that it was the primary time in 20 years that airstrikes had been carried out.
The weekend’s bloodshed drew renewed Western condemnation, with nations together with the US, Britain and the European Union talking out. The army’s actions had been described as a “massacre,” “mass murder” and “shameful, cowardly, brutal” assaults, by varied UN officers.
Alice Wairimu Nderitu, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, and Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, urged Myanmar’s army to “immediately stop killing the very people it has the duty to serve and protect.”
The officers additionally “strongly condemned the Myanmar military’s widespread, lethal, increasingly systematic attacks against peaceful protesters, as well as other serious violations of human rights since it seized power on 1 February 2021.”
But international criticism and the sanctions imposed by some Western nations have failed up to now to sway the army leaders, as have nearly every day protests across the nation for the reason that junta took energy and detained elected chief Aung San Suu Kyi.
UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews stated it was time for the world to take motion — if not by the UN Security Council then by a global emergency summit. He stated the junta must be reduce off from funding, similar to oil and fuel revenues, and from entry to weapons.
“Words of condemnation or concern are frankly ringing hollow to the people of Myanmar while the military junta commits mass murder against them,” he stated in an announcement.
