(Reuters) – Security forces in Myanmar fired grenades at protesters in a town near Yangon on Friday, killing more than 80 people, the Political Detainee Assistance Association (AAPP) monitoring group and an internal media outlet said.
Details of the death toll in Bago town, 90 km (55 miles) northeast of Yangon, were not initially available, as security forces piled corpses into the Zeyar Muni pagoda complex and surrounded the area, according to witnesses and local media. .
The AAPP and Myanmar Now media said on Saturday that 82 people had been killed during a protest against the February 1 military coup in the country. The shootings began on Friday before dawn and continued until the afternoon, Myanmar Now said.
“It’s like genocide,” said a news organizer named Ye Htut. “I shoot at every shadow.”
Many residents of the city fled, according to accounts on social networks.
A spokesman for the Myanmar military junta could not be reached on Saturday.
AAPP, which kept a number of protesters killed and arrested by security forces on a daily basis, previously said 618 people had died in the coup.
This figure is disputed by the army, which says it staged the coup because the November elections won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s party were rigged. The Electoral Commission rejected the statement.
Junta spokesman General Zaw Min Tun told a news conference in the capital, Naypyitaw, on Friday that the army had killed 248 civilians and 16 policemen and said no automatic weapons had been used. by the security forces.
An alliance of ethnic armies in Myanmar that opposed the repression of the junta attacked an eastern police station on Saturday and at least 10 policemen were killed, domestic media said.
The Naungmon police station in Shan State was attacked early in the morning by fighters in an alliance that includes the Arakan Army, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the National Democratic Alliance Army in Myanmar, media reported.
Shan News said at least 10 police officers were killed, while the Shwe Phee Myay media reported the death toll at 14.
Myanmar’s military rulers said on Friday that protests against his rule were diminishing because people wanted peace and that he would hold elections within two years.
Myanmar lawmakers on Friday urged the United Nations Security Council to take action against the military.
“Our people are ready to pay any cost to regain their rights and freedoms,” said Zin Mar Aung, who has been appointed acting foreign minister for a group of resigned lawmakers. She urged Council members to apply both direct and indirect pressure to the junta.
“Myanmar is on the verge of state failure, of state collapse,” Richard Horsey, senior adviser in Myanmar with the International Crisis Group, told the informal UN meeting, Myanmar’s first public discussion of council members.
Reuters staff reporting; Written by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Edited by Pravin Char