DM Monitoring
Naypyitaw: Myanmar security forces opened fire on Thursday on a pro-democracy protest by medical workers in the city of Mandalay, and during more shooting in a nearby area one man was killed and several were wounded, media reported.
Opponents of a February 1st coup that ousted an elected government led by Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi have kept up their campaign against the military this traditional New Year week with marches and other displays of resistance.
Medical workers, some of whom have been at the forefront of the campaign against the coup, gathered in the second city of Mandalay early but troops soon arrived to disperse them, opening fire and detaining some people, the BBC’s Burmese-language service said. The BBC and other news outlets did not have details of casualties or arrests at the protest but Khit Thit media said a man was shot and killed in the compound of a nearby mosque as security forces broke up the medics’ protest.
A spokesman for the junta could not be reached for comment. A resident of the neighbourhood where the mosque is located said soldiers had arrived there and started shooting, wounding one person who was later taken to hospital. “There was no protest here. The soldiers just came and seemed to be searching for someone,” the resident, who declined to be identified, said by telephone.
The BBC Burmese service reported four people were wounded in that neighbourhood. The five-day New Year holiday, known as Thingyan, began on Tuesday but pro-democracy activists cancelled the usual festivities to focus on their opposition to the generals. Hundreds of people joined protests marches in several other towns, according to pictures posted by media outlets. The coup has plunged Myanmar into crisis after 10 years of tentative steps toward democracy, with, in addition to the daily protests, strikes by workers in many sectors that have brought the economy to a standstill.
