Myanmar coup protesters return protesters after fatal day

Anti-coup protesters returned to cities and towns across Myanmar on Thursday after dozens of people were killed in the deadliest day of the junta disaster.

According to the United Nations, at least 38 people died on Wednesday. Online images taken out of Myanmar showed security forces crowds of protesters and blood-soaked bodies of bullet wounds to their heads.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said Wednesday’s violence left the United States and “disappointed and humiliated” it. “We call on all countries to speak unanimously to condemn the barbaric violence by the Burmese military against our own people,” he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron called for “an immediate end to repression in Myanmar”.

More than 50 people have died since the military takeover, UN envoy Myanmar Christine Schröner Bergner told reporters.

On Thursday, protesters hit the streets again as the center of attraction for unrest in the country’s two largest cities, Yangon and Mandalay, as well as other cities.

In recent days, Yangon’s San Chang Township has descended into chaos as security forces attack there to prevent protesters from gathering. A residential area known for its hip cafes, restaurants and bars, its streets were replaced by barricades made of sandbags, tires, bricks and barbed wire on Thursday. Passers-by went on images of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, who the protesters plastered to the ground to slow down security forces, who would avoid stepping on the portrait. Thenger Shunli Yi told AFP, “Yesterday was terrible … learning the army in Myanmar never changed after 1962.”

According to his lawyer Tin Zar Oo, six journalists were also arrested over the weekend and charged under a law to “create fear, spread false news, or directly or indirectly incite a public servant”.

However, protesters, civilian journalists and some media groups continued to send photographs out of Myanmar, and on Thursday the funeral of a 19-year-old woman, Kayal Sin, who was killed in Mandalay, was streamed live on Facebook.