YANGON (AP) – At least 82 people were killed in a single day in a crackdown by Myanmar security forces against pro-democracy protesters, according to reports from local independent media and a victim-keeping organization on Saturday since the February coup.
The death toll in Bago on Friday was the highest total in a single day for a single city since March 14, when just over 100 people were killed in Yangon, the country’s largest city. Bago is about 100 kilometers northeast of Yangon. The Associated Press cannot independently verify the number of deaths.
The death toll was 82 preliminary, compiled by the Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners, which broadcasts daily the number of victims and arrests following the crackdown following the February 1 coup that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Their results are widely accepted as extremely credible, as cases are not added until they have been confirmed, with details posted on their website.
In Saturday’s report, the group said it expected the death toll in Bago to rise as more cases were checked.
The online news site Myanmar Now also reported that 82 people were killed, citing an unnamed source involved in charitable rescue work. Myanmar Now and other local media said the bodies were collected by the military and dumped on the grounds of a Buddhist pagoda.
At least 701 protesters and passers-by have been killed by security forces since taking over the army, according to the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners.
The attack on Bago was the third in the last week that involved the massive use of force to try to crush the persistent opposition to the governing junta.
Attacks were launched on Wednesday against strong opponents of the military government who set up strongholds in the northern cities of Kalay and Taze. In both places, at least 11 people – including some people nearby – were reported killed.
Security forces were accused of using heavy weapons in their attacks, including grenades and rocket mortars, although such allegations could not be independently confirmed by the Associated Press. Photos posted on Bago’s social networks appeared to show fragments of mortar shells.
Most of the protests in cities and towns across the country are carried out by nonviolent protesters who consider themselves part of a civil disobedience movement.
But as police and the army stepped up their use of lethal force, a strong faction of protesters armed themselves with homemade weapons, such as firearms in the name of self-defense. At Kalay, activists called themselves a “civilian army” and some equipped themselves with rudimentary shotguns, which are traditional in the remote area.
A Myanmar Now report said residents of Tamu, a town in the same region as Kalay, used hunting pits on Saturday to ambush a military convoy and claimed to have killed three soldiers.
The junta has taken other measures to discourage resistance. He recently published a wish list of 140 people active in art and journalism tasked with disseminating information that undermines the country’s stability and the rule of law. The penalty for the crime is up to three years in prison. The arrests of those on the list were highly publicized in the state media.
State television channel MRTV reported on Friday night that a military tribunal had sentenced 19 people to death – 17 missing – for allegedly killing an army officer in Yangon on March 27. The attack took place in an area of the city that is under martial control. the law, and the lawsuit seemed to be the first time the death sentence had been imposed under the leadership of the junta.
UN Special Envoy for Myanmar Christine Schraner Burgener arrived in the Thai capital Bangkok on a regional mission to resolve the crisis in Myanmar on Friday. She intends to identify several Southeast Asian governments for their ideas, but has been denied permission to visit Myanmar.