YANGON (AP) – At least 82 people have been killed in one day in a crackdown by Myanmar security forces against pro-democracy protesters, according to Saturday reports from independent local media and an organization tracking victims since the coup in February.
The Friday death toll in Bago was the highest one-day total for a single city since March 14, when just over 100 people were killed in Yangon, the country’s largest city. Bago is located approximately 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Yangon. The Associated Press cannot independently verify the number of deaths.
The death toll of 82 was a provisional death toll compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which issues daily the number of victims and arrests as a result of the crackdown in the aftermath of the Feb. 1 coup in which the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi was expelled.
Their agreements are widely accepted as highly credible as things are not added until after they have been confirmed and the details published on their website.
In its report on Saturday, the group said it expected the death toll in Bago to increase as more cases were verified.
The online news site Myanmar Now also reported that 82 people had been murdered, citing an unnamed source involved in charity rescue work. Myanmar Now and other local media said the bodies had been collected by the military and dumped on the site of a Buddhist pagoda.
At least 701 protesters and bystanders have been killed by security forces since the takeover of the military, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
The attack on Bago was the third in the past week using massive violence to quell persistent opposition to the ruling junta.
On Wednesday, attacks were launched against stubborn opponents of military rule who had set up strongholds in the cities of Kalay and Taze in the north of the country. At least 11 people – possibly including some bystanders – were killed in both places.
The security forces were accused of using heavy weapons in their attacks, including missile grenades and mortars, although such allegations could not be independently confirmed by The Associated Press. Photos of Bago posted to social media 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 the police and military escalated the use of lethal force, a hardcore faction of protesters armed themselves with homemade weapons like firebombs in the name of self-defense. In Kalay, activists called themselves a “civilian army” and some equipped themselves with rudimentary shotguns that are traditional in the remote area.
A report from Myanmar Now said residents of Tamu, a town in the same region as Kalay, used shotguns to ambush a military convoy on Saturday, claiming to have killed three soldiers.
The junta has also taken other measures to discourage resistance. It recently published a wanted list of 140 people active in the arts and journalism charged with disseminating information that undermines the stability of the country and the rule of law. The penalty for the crime is up to three years in prison. The arrests of those on the list have been published extensively in the state media.
State television station MRTV reported Friday night that a military court sentenced 19 people to death – 17 in absentia – for murdering an army officer in Yangon on March 27. The attack took place in an area of the city that is court-martialled. law, and the trial appeared to be the first time the death penalty was imposed under the junta’s rule.
UN Special Envoy to Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, arrived in the Thai capital Bangkok on Friday on a regional mission to resolve the crisis in Myanmar. She plans to poll various Southeast Asian governments for their ideas, but has not been granted permission to visit Myanmar.