The Bangladesh Consulate in Sittwe, Myanmar will soon be shifted to Yangon on a temporary basis due to the current security situation there. “A verbal instruction has already been given. Process is underway,” a senior official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told UNB on Sunday (February 11, 2024). Other foreign missions stationed in Sittwe are also moving to Yangon on security grounds. Read more: 327 Myanmar security forces taking shelter in Bangladesh: BGB Foreign Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud on Saturday said the process of sending back the Myanmar security forces who took shelter in Bangladesh is underway following discussions between the two countries. He said it was not just the members of Myanmar's Border Guard Police (BGP) and army who had fled to Bangladesh, there were some civilians too. And over a hundred people have also entered India. "They also took them back (from India). Several members of their families, along with their border forces and army, have also fled from Myanmar to our country. Our Ambassador had a meeting with the Foreign Minister of Myanmar. Myanmar agreed to take them back," said the Foreign Minister. Read more: Myanmar border unrest: Tourist ship services on Teknaf-Saint Martin’s route suspended indefinitely

Twenty-Nine Bangladeshi citizens returned home today (October 03, 2023) after serving jail terms in different prisons of Myanmar. They came back to Bangladesh through Teknaf border following a “Battalion Commander level flag meeting” between Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and Border Guard Police (BGP) of Myanmar. The steadfast and continued efforts by the Bangladesh Embassy in Yangon and its Sittwe Consulate made the latest repatriation possible after a long hiatus of 18 months when 41 Bangladeshi nationals were repatriated from Myanmar on March 23, 2022, said the Bangladesh Embassy in Yangon. US announces $116 million in humanitarian assistance to people in Bangladesh, Myanmar and Region Among the returnees, 23 are from Cox’s Bazar district, 4 from Bandarban, and 2 from Rangamati of Bangladesh. BGP detained the Bangladeshis on charges of illegally crossing the border into Myanmar at different times. Lt. Col. Mohiuddin, commander of BGB’s Teknaf battalion, led the 10-member Bangladesh team, which included, among others, Zakir Ahmed, Consul of the Bangladesh Consulate in Sittwe, during the handing over/taking over process. Bangladesh-Myanmar visa exemption reinstated

Soe Win stood in line at a plant to buy oxygen for his grandmother, who is struggling with COVID-19 symptoms. “I have been waiting since 5 in the morning until 12 noon but I’m still in line. Oxygen is scarcer than money,” said the resident of Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon. Consumed by a bitter and violent political struggle since the military seized power in February, Myanmar has been slow to wake up to a devastating surge in cases since mid-May. It has left many of the sick like Soe Win’s grandmother to suffer at home if they cannot find a bed at an army hospital, or prefer not to trust their care to the widely disliked government. Read: Myanmar: UN expert calls for emergency coalition to end junta's 'reign of terror' Under Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader ousted by the military, Myanmar had weathered its second coronavirus surge beginning in August last year by severely restricting travel, sealing off Yangon, and curbing election campaigning in virus hot spots where lockdowns were imposed. Suu Kyi appeared frequently on television with stern but empathetic entreaties to the public on how to deal with the situation. Vaccine supplies were secured from India and China. Her ouster came less than a week after the first jabs were given to health workers. Suu Kyi’s removal by the military sparked widespread protests, and medical workers spearheaded a popular civil disobedience movement that called on professionals and civil servants not to cooperate with the military-installed government. Military hospitals continued operating but were shunned by many, while doctors and nurses who boycotted the state system ran makeshift clinics, for which they faced arrest. The pace of vaccinations slowed to a crawl, threatening an explosion in infections. “No wise person with a good heart and a sincere desire for truth would want to work under the junta’s rule,” said Zeyar Tun, founder of the civic action group Clean Yangon who helped out at quarantine centers. “Under Suu Kyi, the government and volunteers worked together to control the disease, but it is difficult to predict what the future holds under military rule.” Photos and news stories early last week of people lining up to buy oxygen in the city of Kalay in the northwestern Sagaing region brought home the reality that Myanmar’s health care, already one of the world’s weakest, was on its knees. “From Myanmar, our U.N. colleagues on the ground say they’re concerned about the rapid increase in the number of recorded COVID-19 cases,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in New York. Read:In Myanmar, the military and police declare war on medics “The U.N. team warns that a major outbreak of COVID-19 would have devastating consequences on both people’s health and on the economy. They stress the importance of resuming the delivery of essential health services, implementing measures to prevent the spread of the virus, and to scale up vaccinations.” By the end of the week, residents of Myanmar’s two biggest cities, Yangon and Mandalay, were also having trouble finding oxygen supplies. Myanmar’s new leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, in a Friday meeting on COVID-19 response ordered oxygen plants to work at full capacity, including converting industrial oxygen for the needs of patients. Investment and Foreign Trade Minister Aung Naing Oo followed up on Saturday with an announcement that the government is dropping all duties and licensing requirements for the import of oxygen concentrators — devices that generate oxygen. The Health Ministry on Saturday reported a record 4,377 new confirmed cases for a total of 188,752, as well as a record 71 deaths, bringing the toll to 3,756. The number of tested people found to be infected is hovering around 25%, and equally alarming is how quickly the numbers have been rising. The data on vaccinations is not very clear, but it appears that as of last month, only 3.5 million doses had been administered to the country’s 55 million people, meaning a maximum of 3.2% of the population would be fully vaccinated with two doses. According to Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average rose from 1.18 cases per 100,000 people on June 25 to 6.08 cases per 100,000 people on July 9. In the same period, deaths jumped from 0.01 per 100,000 people to 0.08. Read:Washington announces further sanctions against Myanmar army personnel and enablers Even those numbers are likely an undercount. According to aid group Relief International, Myanmar’s major challenges are a lack of adequate screening, testing capacity and availability of vaccines. The Health Ministry announced Thursday night that all schools would be closed for two weeks. Stay-at-home orders had already been issued for badly hit neighborhoods in several cities, including Yangon, and basic field hospitals set up.

Myanmar’s security forces moved in and the street lamps went black. In house after house, people shut off their lights. Darkness swallowed the block. Huddled inside her home  in this neighborhood of Yangon, 19-year-old Shwe dared to peek out her window into the inky night. A flashlight shone back, and a man’s voice ordered her not to look. Two gunshots rang out. Then a man’s scream: “HELP!” When the military’s trucks finally rolled away, Shwe and her family emerged to look for her 15-year-old brother, worried about frequent abductions by security forces. “I could feel my blood thumping,” she says. “I had a feeling that he might be taken.” Across the country, Myanmar’s security forces are arresting and forcibly disappearing thousands of people, especially boys and young men, in a sweeping bid to break the back of a three-month uprising against a military takeover. In most cases, the families of those taken do not know where they are, according to an Associated Press analysis of more than 3,500 arrests since February. UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency, is aware of around 1,000 cases of children or young people who have been arbitrarily arrested and detained, many without access to lawyers or their families. Though it is difficult to get exact data, UNICEF says the majority are boys. It is a technique the military has long used to instill fear and to crush pro-democracy movements. The boys and young men are taken from homes, businesses and streets, under the cover of night and sometimes in the brightness of day. Some end up dead. Many are imprisoned and sometimes tortured. Many more are missing. “We’ve definitely moved into a situation of mass enforced disappearances,” says Matthew Smith, cofounder of the human rights group Fortify Rights, which has collected evidence of detainees being killed in custody. “We’re documenting and seeing widespread and systematic arbitrary arrests.” The AP is withholding Shwe’s full name, along with those of several others, to protect them from retaliation by the military. The autobody shop in Shwe’s neighborhood was a regular hangout for local boys. On the night of March 21, her brother had gone there to chill out like he usually did. As Shwe approached the shop, she saw it had been ransacked. Frantic, she and her father scoured the building for any sign of their beloved boy. But he was gone, and the floor was covered in blood. Ever since the military seized control in February, the conflict in Myanmar has become increasingly bloody. Security forces have killed more than 700 people, including a boy as young as 9. In the meantime, the faces of the missing have flooded the Internet in growing numbers. Online videos show soldiers and police beating and kicking young men as they’re shoved into vans, even forcing captives to crawl on all fours and hop like frogs. Recently, photos of young people detained by security forces also have begun circulating online and on military-controlled Myawaddy TV, their faces bloodied, with clear markings of beatings and possible torture. The military’s openness in broadcasting such photos and brutalizing people in daylight is one more sign that its goal is to intimidate. At least 3,500 people have been detained since the military takeover began, more than three-quarters of whom are male, according to an analysis of data collected by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which monitors deaths and arrests. Of the 419 men whose ages were recorded in the group’s database, nearly two-thirds are under age 30, and 78 are teenagers. Nearly 2,700 of the detainees are being held at undisclosed locations, according to an AAPP spokesman. The group says its numbers are likely an undercount. “The military are trying to turn civilians, striking workers, and children into enemies,” says Ko Bo Kyi, AAPP’s joint secretary. “They think if they can kill off the boys and young men, then they can kill off the revolution.” After receiving questions from The Associated Press, the military, known as the Tatmadaw, called a Zoom press conference, during which it dubbed the AAPP a “baseless organization,” suggested its data was inaccurate, and denied security forces are targeting young men. “The security forces are not arresting based on genders and ages,” said Capt. Aye Thazin Myint, a military spokeswoman. “They are only detaining anyone who is rioting, protesting, causing unrest, or any actions along those lines.” Some of those snatched by security forces were protesting. Some have links to the military’s rival political party, most notably Aung San Suu Kyi, who led the elected government that the military toppled and is now under house arrest. Others are taken for no discernable reason. They are typically charged with Section 505(A) of the Penal Code, which, in part, criminalizes comments that “cause fear” or spread “false news.” Both the military and police — who fall under the Tatmadaw’s command via the Ministry of Home Affairs — have been involved in the arrests and disappearances, sometimes working in tandem, according to interviews with detainees and families. Experts believe that suggests a coordinated strategy. “The Myanmar police force and the Tatmadaw moved in in a very deliberate way, in a coordinated way, in similar ways, in disparate locations, which to us would indicate that they were working according to orders,” says Smith of Fortify Rights. “It would appear as though there was ... some national level communication and coordination taking place.” Manny Maung, a Myanmar researcher for Human Rights Watch, says one woman she spoke with described being viciously beaten by police until what looked like a senior military official told them to stop. “They’re definitely following orders from military officials,” Maung says. “And whether they’re coordinating — they’re certainly turning up to places together.” So desperate for information are the loved ones of the lost that some families have resorted to a grim experiment: They send food into the prisons and hope if it isn’t sent back out, that means their relatives are still inside. Myanmar human rights activist Wai Hnin Pwint Thon is intimately acquainted with the Tatmadaw’s tactics. Her father, famed political activist Mya Aye, was arrested during a 1988 uprising against military rule, and the family waited months before they learned he was in prison. He was arrested again on the first day of this year’s military takeover. For two months, the military gave Wai Hnin Pwint Thon’s family no information on his whereabouts. On April 1, the family learned he was being held at Yangon’s notorious Insein prison. “I can’t imagine families of young people who are 19, 20, 21, in prison… We are this worried and we’re used to this situation,” she says. “I’m trying to hold onto hope, but the situation is getting worse every day.” Mee, a 27-year-old villager in the northern region of Mandalay, watched as children on motorbikes raced past her house toward the woods. Not long after, the village elders arrived with a dire warning: All the boys must leave and get somewhere safe. The soldiers might be coming. Just two hours later, Mee says, the elders asked the girls to hide, too. The military’s scare tactics have proven enormously effective. In villages and cities across the country, residents regularly take turns holding night watches, banging pots and pans or yelling to neighbors from the street if soldiers or police are spotted. “I am more afraid of being arrested than getting shot,” says one 29-year-old man who was arrested, beaten and later released, and who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution. “I have a chance of dying on the spot with just one shot. But being arrested, I am afraid that they would torture me.” Fearing for her life on that March afternoon, Mee and hundreds of fellow villagers fled to pineapple farms in the surrounding hills. When she arrived, she saw scores of people from other villages hiding in the forest. That night, as mosquitos swarmed and sounds from the forest haunted them, the women stayed inside a small bamboo tent while the boys took turns standing guard. No one slept. Mee was terrified but not surprised. Many of the villagers had run from the military and hidden in the woods before. “It’s heartbreaking,” she says. For decades, the Tatmadaw has used arbitrary arrests, disappearances, forced labor and other abuses to crush pro-democracy movements and suppress minorities, including its notoriously brutal 2017 campaign of persecution against Rohingya Muslims. “Sometimes communities are asked to provide a number of young men on a ‘voluntary’ basis; sometimes they are taken,” Laetitia van den Assum, a former diplomat and a member of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, said in an e-mail. Arbitrary arrests continue across the country daily. Just two weeks earlier, a few minutes away from Mee’s village, 24-year-old philosophy student Ko Ko was walking home from a protest with a friend when they were arrested. His parents learned of their imprisonment from friends of friends, not officials. More than a month later, his parents still haven’t heard from their only son, says Han, a neighbor. He’s part of an unlucky cohort: at least 44 people taken from the town are yet to be released, Han says. While many of the young men in Mee’s village returned home after two nights in the pineapple fields, some continue to sleep there. Mee has since gone back to her village. Whenever she sees a soldier, she runs. But her fear has largely given way to fury. “I was angry that night, and I am still angry,” she says. “It’s so frustrating that the people who are supposed to be protecting our lives, our safety, our livelihoods and our homes are the people who are chasing us and killing us. … We are helpless.” The glass was shattering, and there was nowhere left for the 21-year-old university student to run. The soldiers were smashing through the front doors of the house in Mandalay. The chaos of such raids is usually followed by a sinister silence, with the families of the taken rarely hearing from officials. But the accounts of some survivors who dare to speak about their ordeals help fill the void of what often happens next. The student, who asked that his name be withheld out of fear of retaliation, had taken refuge in the house along with around 100 others after security forces stormed a rally they were attending. The soldiers had thrown tear gas at them, forcing them to flee. Now he and a half dozen others were cornered in a bathroom on the home’s second level. Downstairs, the security forces used a slingshot and the butt of a gun to break through the doors. The soldiers began beating the boys they found inside, so viciously that a few of their heads cracked open. They urinated on one young man. The student watched as the glass above the bathroom door imploded. “They are here!” the soldiers yelled, then burst in, guns drawn. He bowed his head, since anyone who looked at the soldiers was kicked. The soldiers kicked him anyway, twice in the waist, and hit him twice in the head. As he was marched down the stairs, he saw a soldier with a gun standing on nearly every step. He and around 30 other young men were arrested and ushered into a prison van. Both the military and police were there. The soldiers threatened to burn the van and tauntingly offered the detainees juice before throwing it at them. When they arrived at the prison, the young man saw 400 to 500 people in the temporary holding area. The next day, he was charged with Section 505(A) of the penal code. He and around 50 others spent nine days jammed into one room. There were only two toilets. They were allowed out of the cell twice a day to clean themselves. The same water was used for showering, drinking, washing dishes and using the toilet. When the young man learned he was being transferred to the main prison, he wanted to cry. A few days before his arrest, he had been looking at missing persons posts on social media. Now he realized most of those people were probably in prison like him. The young man had good reason to be frightened. “People are disappearing and turning up dead,” says Maung, of Human Rights Watch. “We have had primary reports, also, of torture while they’re in custody.” The group found that some people detained inside Insein prison were subjected to beatings, stress positions and severe interrogation tactics, up until March 4, Maung says. After that, guards began taking prisoners to second locations and torturing them, then returning them to Insein. In Mandalay, the young man’s family was sick with worry. Some of his friends told them he had been arrested; the authorities never called them. His family sent food into the prison for him. But even when it wasn’t returned, they couldn’t be sure he was inside. They heard reports about protesters being tortured. His sisters cried constantly. Thirteen days after his arrest, the young man was allowed ten minutes to speak with his sister. A week later, an official ordered him to pack his things. In shock, he realized he was being released. There was no time to say goodbye to his friends. The officials took videos and photos of him and around 20 others, and told them to sign statements promising they wouldn’t break the law again. Then they were set free. He didn’t feel lucky — he felt horrible. He didn’t understand why he’d been singled out for release while his friends were still stuck inside. “None of us really feel safe living our normal lives now. For me now, I have reservations walking alone outside even in my neighborhood,” he says. “And also, I feel worried to see the parents of my friends in the neighborhood, because I am out — and their children are not.” Back in Yangon, Shwe stared at the puddles of blood on the floor of the shop where her baby brother had been. It looked as if the security forces had half-heartedly tried to wash it away, but red pools remained. Maybe the blood wasn’t his, she told herself. Shwe’s brother and three other young men from the shop had been hauled away. Neighbors told the family that both police and soldiers were there. The neighbors said the security forces may have targeted the boys because they spotted someone inside the shop with a steel dart slingshot. At 2 a.m., a police officer called to say Shwe’s brother was at a military hospital and had been shot in the hand. They later learned security forces had shot another young man’s finger during the raid. Shwe says her family told the police that her brother was underage. The officer, she says, reassured them that because he was a minor, he probably wouldn’t be charged. Around 7 a.m., the family went to the hospital to bring him food. But their pleas to see him were rejected. Shwe and her family were later told that he was being moved to a prison hospital. Then, on the night of March 27, came the news that stunned them: Her brother and the three others had been charged with possession of weapons, and sentenced to three years in prison. They were allowed one brief phone call with him when he was first in the hospital, and nothing since. Shwe remembers hearing her brother tell their anguished mother, “Thar ah sin pyay tal.” I am OK. Shwe has no idea if that is still true. She worries for her brother, a quiet boy who loves playing games. She worries, too, for their mother, who cries and cries, and for their father, who aches for his only son. For now, they can do little more than wait and hope: That he won’t be beaten. That he will get a pardon. That the people of Myanmar will soon feel safe again. “Even though we are all in distress, we try to look on the bright side that at least we know where he is,” she says. “We are lucky that he was only abducted.”

Myanmar’s security forces moved in and the street lamps went black. In house after house, people shut off their lights. Darkness swallowed the block. Huddled inside her home  in this neighborhood of Yangon, 19-year-old Shwe dared to peek out her window into the inky night. A flashlight shone back, and a man’s voice ordered her not to look. Two gunshots rang out. Then a man’s scream: “HELP!” When the military’s trucks finally rolled away, Shwe and her family emerged to look for her 15-year-old brother, worried about frequent abductions by security forces. “I could feel my blood thumping,” she says. “I had a feeling that he might be taken.” Across the country, Myanmar’s security forces are arresting and forcibly disappearing thousands of people, especially boys and young men, in a sweeping bid to break the back of a three-month uprising against a military takeover. In most cases, the families of those taken do not know where they are, according to an Associated Press analysis of more than 3,500 arrests since February. Also Read:UN calls for return to democracy in Myanmar, end to violence UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency, is aware of around 1,000 cases of children or young people who have been arbitrarily arrested and detained, many without access to lawyers or their families. Though it is difficult to get exact data, UNICEF says the majority are boys. It is a technique the military has long used to instill fear and to crush pro-democracy movements. The boys and young men are taken from homes, businesses and streets, under the cover of night and sometimes in the brightness of day. Some end up dead. Many are imprisoned and sometimes tortured. Many more are missing.  “We’ve definitely moved into a situation of mass enforced disappearances,” says Matthew Smith, cofounder of the human rights group Fortify Rights, which has collected evidence of detainees being killed in custody. “We’re documenting and seeing widespread and systematic arbitrary arrests.” The AP is withholding Shwe’s full name, along with those of several others, to protect them from retaliation by the military. The autobody shop in Shwe’s neighborhood was a regular hangout for local boys. On the night of March 21, her brother had gone there to chill out like he usually did. As Shwe approached the shop, she saw it had been ransacked. Frantic, she and her father scoured the building for any sign of their beloved boy. But he was gone, and the floor was covered in blood. Ever since the military seized control in February, the conflict in Myanmar has become increasingly bloody. Security forces have killed more than 700 people, including a boy as young as 9. In the meantime, the faces of the missing have flooded the Internet in growing numbers. Online videos show soldiers and police beating and kicking young men as they’re shoved into vans, even forcing captives to crawl on all fours and hop like frogs. Recently, photos of young people detained by security forces also have begun circulating online and on military-controlled Myawaddy TV, their faces bloodied, with clear markings of beatings and possible torture. The military’s openness in broadcasting such photos and brutalizing people in daylight is one more sign that its goal is to intimidate. At least 3,500 people have been detained since the military takeover began, more than three-quarters of whom are male, according to an analysis of data collected by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which monitors deaths and arrests. Of the 419 men whose ages were recorded in the group’s database, nearly two-thirds are under age 30, and 78 are teenagers. Nearly 2,700 of the detainees are being held at undisclosed locations, according to an AAPP spokesman. The group says its numbers are likely an undercount. “The military are trying to turn civilians, striking workers, and children into enemies,” says Ko Bo Kyi, AAPP’s joint secretary. “They think if they can kill off the boys and young men, then they can kill off the revolution.” After receiving questions from The Associated Press, the military, known as the Tatmadaw, called a Zoom press conference, during which it dubbed the AAPP a “baseless organization,” suggested its data was inaccurate, and denied security forces are targeting young men. “The security forces are not arresting based on genders and ages,” said Capt. Aye Thazin Myint, a military spokeswoman. “They are only detaining anyone who is rioting, protesting, causing unrest, or any actions along those lines.” Some of those snatched by security forces were protesting. Some have links to the military’s rival political party, most notably Aung San Suu Kyi, who led the elected government that the military toppled and is now under house arrest. Others are taken for no discernable reason. They are typically charged with Section 505(A) of the Penal Code, which, in part, criminalizes comments that “cause fear” or spread “false news.” Both the military and police — who fall under the Tatmadaw’s command via the Ministry of Home Affairs — have been involved in the arrests and disappearances, sometimes working in tandem, according to interviews with detainees and families. Experts believe that suggests a coordinated strategy. “The Myanmar police force and the Tatmadaw moved in in a very deliberate way, in a coordinated way, in similar ways, in disparate locations, which to us would indicate that they were working according to orders,” says Smith of Fortify Rights. “It would appear as though there was ... some national level communication and coordination taking place.” Manny Maung, a Myanmar researcher for Human Rights Watch, says one woman she spoke with described being viciously beaten by police until what looked like a senior military official told them to stop. “They’re definitely following orders from military officials,” Maung says. “And whether they’re coordinating — they’re certainly turning up to places together.” So desperate for information are the loved ones of the lost that some families have resorted to a grim experiment: They send food into the prisons and hope if it isn’t sent back out, that means their relatives are still inside. Myanmar human rights activist Wai Hnin Pwint Thon is intimately acquainted with the Tatmadaw’s tactics. Her father, famed political activist Mya Aye, was arrested during a 1988 uprising against military rule, and the family waited months before they learned he was in prison. He was arrested again on the first day of this year’s military takeover. For two months, the military gave Wai Hnin Pwint Thon’s family no information on his whereabouts. On April 1, the family learned he was being held at Yangon’s notorious Insein prison. “I can’t imagine families of young people who are 19, 20, 21, in prison… We are this worried and we’re used to this situation,” she says. “I’m trying to hold onto hope, but the situation is getting worse every day.” Mee, a 27-year-old villager in the northern region of Mandalay, watched as children on motorbikes raced past her house toward the woods. Not long after, the village elders arrived with a dire warning: All the boys must leave and get somewhere safe. The soldiers might be coming. Just two hours later, Mee says, the elders asked the girls to hide, too. The military’s scare tactics have proven enormously effective. In villages and cities across the country, residents regularly take turns holding night watches, banging pots and pans or yelling to neighbors from the street if soldiers or police are spotted. “I am more afraid of being arrested than getting shot,” says one 29-year-old man who was arrested, beaten and later released, and who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution. “I have a chance of dying on the spot with just one shot. But being arrested, I am afraid that they would torture me.” Fearing for her life on that March afternoon, Mee and hundreds of fellow villagers fled to pineapple farms in the surrounding hills. When she arrived, she saw scores of people from other villages hiding in the forest. That night, as mosquitos swarmed and sounds from the forest haunted them, the women stayed inside a small bamboo tent while the boys took turns standing guard. No one slept. Mee was terrified but not surprised. Many of the villagers had run from the military and hidden in the woods before. “It’s heartbreaking,” she says. Also Read:UN report says Myanmar poverty could double from coup chaos For decades, the Tatmadaw has used arbitrary arrests, disappearances, forced labor and other abuses to crush pro-democracy movements and suppress minorities, including its notoriously brutal 2017 campaign of persecution against Rohingya Muslims. “Sometimes communities are asked to provide a number of young men on a ‘voluntary’ basis; sometimes they are taken,” Laetitia van den Assum, a former diplomat and a member of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, said in an e-mail. Arbitrary arrests continue across the country daily. Just two weeks earlier, a few minutes away from Mee’s village, 24-year-old philosophy student Ko Ko was walking home from a protest with a friend when they were arrested. His parents learned of their imprisonment from friends of friends, not officials. More than a month later, his parents still haven’t heard from their only son, says Han, a neighbor. He’s part of an unlucky cohort: at least 44 people taken from the town are yet to be released, Han says. While many of the young men in Mee’s village returned home after two nights in the pineapple fields, some continue to sleep there. Mee has since gone back to her village. Whenever she sees a soldier, she runs. But her fear has largely given way to fury. “I was angry that night, and I am still angry,” she says. “It’s so frustrating that the people who are supposed to be protecting our lives, our safety, our livelihoods and our homes are the people who are chasing us and killing us. … We are helpless.” The glass was shattering, and there was nowhere left for the 21-year-old university student to run. The soldiers were smashing through the front doors of the house in Mandalay. The chaos of such raids is usually followed by a sinister silence, with the families of the taken rarely hearing from officials. But the accounts of some survivors who dare to speak about their ordeals help fill the void of what often happens next. The student, who asked that his name be withheld out of fear of retaliation, had taken refuge in the house along with around 100 others after security forces stormed a rally they were attending. The soldiers had thrown tear gas at them, forcing them to flee. Now he and a half dozen others were cornered in a bathroom on the home’s second level. Downstairs, the security forces used a slingshot and the butt of a gun to break through the doors. The soldiers began beating the boys they found inside, so viciously that a few of their heads cracked open. They urinated on one young man. The student watched as the glass above the bathroom door imploded. “They are here!” the soldiers yelled, then burst in, guns drawn. He bowed his head, since anyone who looked at the soldiers was kicked. The soldiers kicked him anyway, twice in the waist, and hit him twice in the head. As he was marched down the stairs, he saw a soldier with a gun standing on nearly every step. He and around 30 other young men were arrested and ushered into a prison van. Both the military and police were there. The soldiers threatened to burn the van and tauntingly offered the detainees juice before throwing it at them. When they arrived at the prison, the young man saw 400 to 500 people in the temporary holding area. The next day, he was charged with Section 505(A) of the penal code. He and around 50 others spent nine days jammed into one room. There were only two toilets. They were allowed out of the cell twice a day to clean themselves. The same water was used for showering, drinking, washing dishes and using the toilet. When the young man learned he was being transferred to the main prison, he wanted to cry. A few days before his arrest, he had been looking at missing persons posts on social media. Now he realized most of those people were probably in prison like him. The young man had good reason to be frightened. “People are disappearing and turning up dead,” says Maung, of Human Rights Watch. “We have had primary reports, also, of torture while they’re in custody.” The group found that some people detained inside Insein prison were subjected to beatings, stress positions and severe interrogation tactics, up until March 4, Maung says. After that, guards began taking prisoners to second locations and torturing them, then returning them to Insein. In Mandalay, the young man’s family was sick with worry. Some of his friends told them he had been arrested; the authorities never called them. His family sent food into the prison for him. But even when it wasn’t returned, they couldn’t be sure he was inside. They heard reports about protesters being tortured. His sisters cried constantly. Thirteen days after his arrest, the young man was allowed ten minutes to speak with his sister. A week later, an official ordered him to pack his things. In shock, he realized he was being released. There was no time to say goodbye to his friends. The officials took videos and photos of him and around 20 others, and told them to sign statements promising they wouldn’t break the law again. Then they were set free. He didn’t feel lucky — he felt horrible. He didn’t understand why he’d been singled out for release while his friends were still stuck inside. “None of us really feel safe living our normal lives now. For me now, I have reservations walking alone outside even in my neighborhood,” he says. “And also, I feel worried to see the parents of my friends in the neighborhood, because I am out — and their children are not.” Back in Yangon, Shwe stared at the puddles of blood on the floor of the shop where her baby brother had been. It looked as if the security forces had half-heartedly tried to wash it away, but red pools remained. Maybe the blood wasn’t his, she told herself. Shwe’s brother and three other young men from the shop had been hauled away. Neighbors told the family that both police and soldiers were there. The neighbors said the security forces may have targeted the boys because they spotted someone inside the shop with a steel dart slingshot. At 2 a.m., a police officer called to say Shwe’s brother was at a military hospital and had been shot in the hand. They later learned security forces had shot another young man’s finger during the raid. Shwe says her family told the police that her brother was underage. The officer, she says, reassured them that because he was a minor, he probably wouldn’t be charged. Around 7 a.m., the family went to the hospital to bring him food. But their pleas to see him were rejected. Shwe and her family were later told that he was being moved to a prison hospital. Also Read: Myanmar airstrikes target ethnic forces on 2 fronts Then, on the night of March 27, came the news that stunned them: Her brother and the three others had been charged with possession of weapons, and sentenced to three years in prison. They were allowed one brief phone call with him when he was first in the hospital, and nothing since. Shwe remembers hearing her brother tell their anguished mother, “Thar ah sin pyay tal.” I am OK. Shwe has no idea if that is still true. She worries for her brother, a quiet boy who loves playing games. She worries, too, for their mother, who cries and cries, and for their father, who aches for his only son. For now, they can do little more than wait and hope: That he won’t be beaten. That he will get a pardon. That the people of Myanmar will soon feel safe again. “Even though we are all in distress, we try to look on the bright side that at least we know where he is,” she says. “We are lucky that he was only abducted.”

Opponents of Myanmar’s ruling junta went on the political offensive Friday, declaring they have formed an interim national unity government with members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s ousted cabinet and major ethnic minority groups. The move comes on the eve of a diplomatic initiative to solve Myanmar’s crisis by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which is expected to hold a summit next week. A violent crackdown by the junta has failed to stem opposition to the coup, and as the army has spread the fight to ethnic minorities in border areas, some ASEAN members believe the crisis threatens regional stability. Opponents of the coup have been seeking an alliance with ethnic minority groups as a way of strengthening their resistance. The minorities for decades have kept up on-again, off-again armed struggles for greater autonomy in the borderlands. While it was not clear if the minority political organizations had formally joined an alliance, the appointment of prominent personalities from their ranks showed a commitment to a joint struggle against the military, which is certain to boost morale to the anti-coup cause. Also read: Stepping up Myanmar coup penalties, US suspends trade deal Security forces have killed at least 726 protesters and bystanders since the Feb. 1 military takeover, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which monitors casualties and arrests. The protests and the killings have been continuing on a daily basis. The National Unity Government is nominally an upgrade from what had been called the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, which was formed shortly after the coup by elected lawmakers who were barred by the army from taking their seats. The CRPH sought international recognition as Myanmar’s sole legitimate government body, but won only popular support from those opposed to military rule. The junta declared the CRPH an illegal organization, and issued arrest warrants for its leading members. A video posted Friday on social media showed veteran activist Min Ko Naing announcing the formation of the new body. He was a leader of the failed 1988 uprising against a previous military dictatorship and is one of the country’s most respected political figures aside from Suu Kyi. He went quickly underground after the coup and apparently has been active in political organizing against the junta since then. “Please support the National Unity Government for the future of our citizens and our younger generation.” he said. “The people are the decision makers and the people will fight the final battle. Victory is coming, We must win our revolution.” Also read: 93 killed in one of deadliest days since Myanmar coup More details were provided in a statement on social media by Dr. Sasa, a physician and philanthropist who though in hiding has been the online public face of the CRPH.. “Today, at the end of Thingyan on the eve of Myanmar’s new year, we are proud to announce the formation of a new National Unity Government and the dawn of a new era for the people of Myanmar,” said Sasa. “For the first time in our history, Myanmar has a unity government that will reflect one of our nation’s greatest strengths - the diversity of our people.” The CRPH announced that Suu Kyi retains her post as state counsellor and Win Myint as president, though both were arrested in the coup and remain in detention, with criminal charges against them that supporters call politically motivated. Sasa said the interim’s government’s vice president — its acting president - is Duwa Lashi La, a political leader of the Kachin minority from the country’s north, while the prime minister is Mahn Win Khaing Than, from the Karen minority in eastern Myanmar, who had been speaker of the elected upper house of Parliament. Sasa himself comes from the Chin minority, while Myanmar’s government and military have always been dominated by the Burman majority. Also read: Myanmar coup leader: 'Join hands' with army for democracy It is not the first time in recent decades that opponent to military rule in Myanmar have formed a shadow government. In 1990, they formed the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma after a military regime refused to recognize the results of a general election won in a landslide by Suu Kyi’s party. That shadow government maintained a presence in territory controlled by the Karen on Myanmar’s eastern frontier, but also operated as a lobbying group based in Maryland in the United States. It dissolved itself in September 2012 after Suu Kyi’s party took part in by-elections earlier that year, capturing 43 of the 44 seats it contested.

Myanmar security forces reportedly killed 93 people Saturday in the deadliest day since last month’s military coup. A count issued by an independent researcher in Yangon who has been compiling near real-time death tolls put the total as darkness fell at 93, spread over more than two dozen cities and towns. The online news site Myanmar Now reported the death toll had reached 91. Both numbers are higher than all estimates for the previous high on March 14, which ranged from 74 to 90. Figures collected by the researcher, who asked not to be named for his security, have generally tallied with the counts issued at the end of each day by the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, which documents deaths and arrests and is widely seen as a definitive source. Also read: 320 killed in Myanmar military's crackdowns on protests, group says As Myanmar’s military celebrated the annual Armed Forces Day holiday with a parade Saturday in the country’s capital, soldiers and police elsewhere reportedly killed dozens of people as they suppressed protests against last month’s coup. The killings quickly drew international condemnation, with multiple diplomatic missions to Myanmar releasing statements that mentioned the killing of civilians Saturday, including children. “This 76th Myanmar armed forces day will stay engraved as a day of terror and dishonour,” the European Union’s delegation to Myanmar said on Twitter. “The killing of unarmed civilians, including children, are indefensible acts." The death toll in Myanmar has been steadily rising as authorities grow more forceful with their suppression of opposition to the Feb. 1 coup that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The coup reversed years of progress toward democracy after five decades of military rule. Up through Friday, the Association of Political Prisoners had verified 328 people killed in the post-coup crackdown. The highest daily death toll had been at least 74 people on March 14, but on that occasion all but a handful of deaths were in Yangon, the country’s biggest city. Junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing did not directly refer to the protest movement when he gave his nationally televised Armed Forces Day speech before thousands of soldiers in Naypyitaw. He referred only to “terrorism which can be harmful to state tranquility and social security,” and called it unacceptable. This year’s event was seen as a flashpoint for violence, with demonstrators threatening to double down on their public opposition to the coup with more and bigger demonstrations. The protesters refer to the holiday by its original name, Resistance Day, which marks the beginning of a revolt against Japanese occupation in World War 2. State television MRTV on Friday night showed an announcement urging young people — who have been at the forefront of the protests and prominent among the casualties — to learn a lesson from those killed during demonstrations about the danger of being shot in the head or back. Also read:  Protests in Myanmar as junta chief marks Armed Forces Day The warning was widely taken as a threat because a great number of the fatalities among protesters have come from being shot in the head, suggesting they have been targeted for death. The announcement suggested that some young people were taking part in protesting as if it was a game, and urged their parents and friends to talk them out of participating. In recent days the junta has portrayed the demonstrators as the ones perpetrating violence for their sporadic use of Molotov cocktails. In contrast, security forces have used live ammunition for weeks against overwhelmingly unarmed and peaceful crowds. The military government does not issue regular casualty counts, and when it has released figures, the totals have been a fraction of what independent parties such as the U.N. have reported. It has said its use of force has been justified to stop what it has called rioting. In his speech Saturday, Min Aung Hlaing used the occasion to try to justify the overthrow of Suu Kyi’s government, accusing it of failing to investigate irregularities in last November’s general election, and repeating that his government would hold “a free and fair election” and hand over power afterward. The military has claimed there were irregularities in the voting rolls for the last election, which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won in a landslide. Also read: Myanmar: Protests erupt again amid a show of force by coup leaders The junta detained Suu Kyi on the day it took power, and continues to hold her on minor criminal charges while investigating allegations of corruption against her that her supporters dismiss as politically motivated. Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, said Saturday's events showed that the military, known in Myanmar as the Tatmadaw, should be prosecuted in international courts of law. “This is a day of suffering and mourning for the Burmese people, who have paid for the Tatmadaw’s arrogance and greed with their lives, time and time again,” he said.

The United Nations said at least 138 peaceful protesters have been killed in Myanmar since the Feb. 1 military coup, including at least 56 killed over the weekend.

Security forces in Myanmar on Saturday again met protests against last month’s military takeover with lethal force, killing at least four people by shooting live ammunition at demonstrators.

Security forces in Myanmar again used force Saturday to disperse anti-coup protesters, a day after a U.N. special envoy urged the Security Council to take action to quell junta violence that this past week left more than 50 peaceful demonstrators dead and scores injured.