Nearly 40 killed in violent day of protests, says UN envoy

Thirty-eight people were killed in Myanmar as the military quelled protests in several towns and cities on Wednesday, the United Nations said, the most violent day since demonstrations against last month`s military coup first broke out. Police and soldiers opened fire with live rounds with little warning, witnesses said.

The bloodshed occurred one day after neighbouring countries had called for restraint in the aftermath of the military`s overthrow of the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. “It`s horrific, it`s a massacre. No words can describe the situation and our feelings,” youth activist Thinzar Shunlei Yi told Reuters via a messaging app.

The dead included four children, an aid agency said. Hundreds of protesters were arrested, local media reported.

“Today it was the bloodiest day since the coup happened on the 1st of February. We had today — only today — 38 people died. We have now more than over 50 people died since the coup started, and many are wounded,” United Nations special envoy on Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, said in New York.

A spokesman for the ruling military council did not answer telephone calls seeking comment. Schraner Burgener said that in conversations with Myanmar`s deputy military chief Soe Win, she had warned him that the military was likely to face strong measures from some countries and isolation in retaliation for the coup.

“The answer was: `We are used to sanctions, and we survived`,” she told reporters in New York. “When I also warned they will go (into) isolation, the answer was: `We have to learn to walk with only few friends`.” The UN Security Council is due to discuss the situation on Friday in a closed meeting, diplomats said.

Ko Bo Kyi, joint secretary of Myanmar`s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners rights group, had said earlier the military killed at least 18. But the toll rose by the end of the day.

In the main city Yangon, witnesses said at least eight people were killed, seven of them when security forces opened sustained fire in a neighbourhood in the north of the city in the early evening.

“I heard so much continuous firing. I lay down on the ground, they shot a lot,” protester Kaung Pyae Sone Tun, 23, told Reuters.

In Washington, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said the United States was “appalled” by the increase in violence. The administration of President Joe Biden was evaluating “appropriate” measures to respond and any actions would be targeted at Myanmar`s military, he added.

The United States has conveyed to China that it is looking for Beijing to play a constructive role in Myanmar, the spokesman said.

The European Union said the shootings of unarmed civilians and medical workers were clear breaches of international law. It also said the military was stepping up repression of the media, with a growing number of journalists arrested and charged.

In the central town of Monywa, six people were killed, the Monywa Gazette reported. Others were killed in the second-biggest city Mandalay, the northern town of Hpakant, and the central town of Myingyan.

Save the Children said in a statement four children were among the dead, including a 14-year-old boy who Radio Free Asia reported was shot dead by a soldier on a passing convoy of military trucks. The soldiers loaded his body onto a truck and left the scene, according to the report.