An estimated 7,000 local residents have reportedly fled their homes since 17 November due to Military Council troops launching an offensive to the western part of Khin-U Township, Sagaing region.
Follow this thread for updates on the situation in Myanmar, where a coup may be happening after de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other officials have reportedly been detained by the military.
Photo: Military officers wearing facemasks who serve as members of Myanmar's parliament leave after a session at the Assembly of the Union (Pyidaungsu Hluttaw) in Naypyidaw on March 10, 2020. AFP/Ye Aung Thu
Young women are leading the anti-coup protesters in Myanmar. | Karen Information Center / AFP
One of the first signs of the military coup that overthrew Myanmar’s democratically elected civilian government was a Facebook Live video of regional lawmaker Pa Pa Han being arrested, which was posted by her husband.
Soldiers stormed Pa Pa Han’s home around 3 am on February 1. While her young daughter wailed and her husband pleaded to see an arrest warrant, Pa Pa Han stalwartly grabbed her handbag and a coat and left with the soldiers.
Other parliamentarians were simultaneously being roused from bed and arrested across Myanmar by soldiers who claimed election fraud had occurred in the November elections. By daybreak, Myanmar was under military rule.
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Teachers in uniform at a civil disobedience movement demonstration against the coup in Dooplaya district in Myanmar s Karen state, May 13. Former female prisoners say women experience sexual- and gender-based violence while detained by the military. – AFP pic, May 14, 2021.
BEATEN, kicked in the groin and threatened with sexual violence – a young Myanmar teenager detained by the junta’s security forces has described the treatment suffered by some women and girls behind bars.
Shwe Yamin Htet, 17, and her mother were arrested on April 14 in Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial capital, which has been blanketed with heavy security since the military seized power in a coup.