Myanmar has seen the most violent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters on Saturday when the ruling military regime put on a show of its strength on its annual Armed Forces Day.
The junta, in a televised message on Friday night, warned the protesters of the risk of being shot in the head and back if they continue the anti-coup demonstrations.
As the protesters, however, defied the junta threat and took to the streets in towns and cities across the country on Saturday, they met the violent crackdown by the security forces.
According to media reports, volunteer groups and witnesses to the killings, more than 140 people have been shot dead by the security forces throughout the country on Saturday.
Myanmar NOW, a leading news outlet in the country, reported that it has verified the deaths of 141 civilians in 44 towns and cities in eight out of 15 regions on Saturday.
Yangon and Mandalay, the two largest cities and most important commercial hubs of the country, were the worst hit on Saturday with 23 and 29 deaths, respectively, according to the tally by Myanmar Security forces killed more than 110 people across Myanmar on Saturday in one of the bloodiest days of protests since a military coup last month, news reports and witnesses said.
The lethal crackdown came on Armed Forces Day. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the junta leader, said during a parade in the capital Naypyitaw to mark the event that the military would protect the people and strive for democracy.
State television had said on Friday that protesters risked being shot “in the head and back”. Despite this, demonstrators against the Feb. 1 coup came out on the streets of Yangon, Mandalay and other towns.
Meanwhile, one of Myanmar’s two dozen ethnic armed groups, the Karen National Union, said it had overrun an army post near the Thai border, killing 10 people - including a lieutenant colonel - and losing one of its own fighters.
A military spokesman did not respond to calls seeking comment on the killings by security forces or the insurgent attack on its post.
“They are killing us like birds or chickens, even in our homes,” said Thu Ya Zaw in the central town of Myingyan, where at least two protesters were killed. “We will keep protesting regardless... We must fight until the junta falls.”
The deaths on Saturday would take the number of civilians reported killed since the coup to well over 400.
“This 76th Myanmar armed forces day will stay engraved as a day of terror and dishonour,” the EU delegation to Myanmar said. “The killing of unarmed civilians, including children, are indefensible acts.”
News reports said there were deaths in the central Sagaing region, Lashio in the east, in the Bago region, near Yangon, and elsewhere. A one-year-old baby was hit in the eye with a rubber bullet.
In Naypyitaw, Min Aung Hlaing reiterated a promise to hold elections, without giving any time-frame.
“The army seeks to join hands with the entire nation to safeguard democracy,” he said in a live broadcast on state television. “Violent acts that affect stability and security in order to make demands are inappropriate.”
The military has said it took power because November elections won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s party were fraudulent, an assertion dismissed by the country’s election commission.
Suu Kyi, the elected leader and the country’s most popular civilian politician, remains in detention at an undisclosed location. Many other figures in her party are also being held in custody.
Russia 'a true friend'
In its warning on Friday evening, state television said protesters were “in danger of getting shot to the head and back”. It did not specifically say security forces had been given shoot-to-kill orders and the junta has previously suggested some fatal shootings have come from within the crowds.
International pressure on the junta increased this week with new US and European sanctions. But Russia’s deputy defence minister Alexander Fomin attended the parade in Naypyitaw, having met senior junta leaders a day earlier.
“Russia is a true friend,” Min Aung Hlaing said.
Diplomats said eight countries - Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand - sent representatives, but Russia was the only one to send a minister.
Support from Russia and China, which has also refrained from criticism, is important for the junta as those two countries are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and can block potential UN actions.
Armed Forces Day commemorates the start of the resistance to Japanese occupation in 1945 that was orchestrated by Suu Kyi’s father, the founder of the military.
Gunshots hit the US cultural centre in Yangon on Saturday, but nobody was hurt and the incident was being investigated, US Embassy spokesperson Aryani Manring said.
Protesters have taken to the streets almost daily since the coup that derailed Myanmar’s slow transition to democracy.
General Yawd Serk, chair of the Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army - South, one of the ethnic armies in the country, told Reuters in neighbouring Thailand:”If they continue to shoot at protesters and bully the people, I think all the ethnic groups would not just stand by and do nothing.”
Author and historian Thant Myint-U wrote on Twitter: “A failed state in Myanmar has the potential to draw in all the big powers - including the US, China, India, Russia, and Japan - in a way that could lead to a serious international crisis (as well as an even greater catastrophe in Myanmar itself)”.
Myanmar Now news website said 94 people were killed across the country on Saturday by 2.30pm (08:00 GMT), but the numbers could not be independently verified.
A military spokesman did not respond to calls from Reuters news agency seeking comment.
At least three protesters were shot dead and several injured on Saturday in the country’s largest city, Yangon, according to numerous news reports. Earlier, eight people were also killed in Dala township, just south of Yangon.
A boy reported by local media to be as young as five was among at least 13 people killed in Myanmar’s second city of Mandalay.
Another protester was also killed and four others were seriously injured in Bago region on Saturday morning, according to The Irrawaddy newspaper.
Also killed on Saturday was Dr. Phyo Thant Wai, a medical doctor from University of Medicine in Mandalay, according to the Civil Disobedience Movement.
A 13-year-old boy from Shwebo in Sagaing region was also killed, after he was reportedly shot by a sniper while looking outside from the window of his family’s house.
Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng, reporting from Bangkok in neighbouring Thailand, said it was hard to determine an exact number of fatalities, but reports collated from social media suggest the nationwide death toll on Saturday was at least 50 and likely to be much higher.
“We are also seeing a lot of images of people with terrible wounds, a lot of them bullet wounds to the head – some still alive, others clearly dead – as the army has cracked down all over the country with absolute force,” he said.
The military earlier warned that pro-democracy protesters risked being shot in the head or back if they continue their demonstrations, adding that it was determined to prevent any disruptions to the military events in the capital, Naypyidaw.
A broadcast on the state MRTV news channel warned on Friday, “You should learn from the tragedy of earlier ugly deaths that you can be in danger of getting shot to the head and back.”
Previous processions have seen troops and armour, including tanks, jets and missiles, file past army chief – and now coup leader – General Min Aung Hlaing.
Fears had been swirling that the day, which commemorates the start of the Myanmar army’s resistance to Japanese occupation in World War II, could become a flashpoint for unrest.
Amid the violence on Saturday, the leader of Myanmar’s ruling military government, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing continued to say that the military will protect the people and strive for democracy.
“The army seeks to join hands with the entire nation to safeguard democracy,” the general said.
“Violent acts that affect stability and security in order to make demands are inappropriate.”Overnight, anti-coup protests continued across the country with demonstrators gathering in Budalin township west of Mandalay to hold a candlelight vigil.
There were also reports of the military raiding the Thingangyun Sanpya Hospital and grabbing injured protesters in Yangon on Friday night. Another video posted on social media showed security forces raiding homes.
Al Jazeera’s Tong Cheng said protesters have increasingly used motorbikes over the past two days as a strategy to evade the security forces.
“So [protesters] have been going out earlier and earlier in the morning, and sometimes on motorbikes so they can flee quickly if there is an encounter with the security services,” he said.
Cheng said that the security forces have even been arresting monks – considered a taboo in Myanmar society.
“But once again the security services are showing that there are no bounds to which they are not prepared to go at this stage,” Cheng said.
Economy slumps amid crackdown
The country has been in turmoil since the generals overthrew and detained civilian ruler Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1, triggering an enormous uprising demanding a return to democracy.
The military has defended its power grab, citing allegations of fraud in the November election which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won by a landslide.
Security forces have increasingly cracked down with lethal force on demonstrations against the coup in recent weeks, using tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds to break up rallies.
At least four people were reported killed on Friday.The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a local monitoring group, said on Friday that at least 328 people have been killed since the coup started. More than 3,000 others have been arrested.
On Friday, Yangon’s notorious Insein prison released 322 people detained for protests, adding to more than 600 freed earlier in the week.The protest movement has also included widespread strikes and civil disobedience by government workers, which have hamstrung the functioning of the state.
The protest movement, coming on top of a COVID pandemic that hit Myanmar hard, has struck the country’s economy.The World Bank has warned the country faces a huge 10 percent slump in GDP in 2021.
The brutality of the crackdown has horrified international powers, which have responded with criticism and sanctions.
On Thursday the United States and United Kingdom – the nation’s former colonial ruler – put sanctions on a conglomerate owned by the Myanmar military.
Gunshots hit the US cultural centre in Yangon on Saturday, but nobody was hurt and the incident was being investigated, US embassy spokesperson Aryani Manring said.So far, diplomatic pressure has had little effect and Washington and London hope that hitting the military’s financial interests will pay dividends.
The armed forces dominate many key sectors of the Myanmar economy, including trading, natural resources, alcohol, cigarettes and consumer goods.
The civil disobedience movement had a boost on Friday when a group of Norwegian academics nominated it for the Nobel Peace Prize – won in 1991 by Aung San Suu Kyi.