Iran Press/Asia: At least two people were killed in the Yangon district of South Dagon when security forces moved in to clear protesters’ barricades, residents said.
“We can confirm two were killed in our ward,” said one neighborhood resident who asked to be identified as just Win.
Security forces fired a much heavier-caliber weapon than usual to clear a barricade in South Dagon, witnesses said and a video clip showed. It was not immediately clear what type, although a community group posted a picture of a soldier with a grenade launcher.
State television said security forces used “riot weapons” to disperse a crowd of “violent terrorist people” who were destroying a pavement and one man was wounded.
One man was killed earlier in another Yangon neighborhood when security forces fired on protesters and a Red Cross team, witness Thiha Soe told Reuters.
Police and a junta spokesman did not answer calls seeking comment. Myanmar’s Red Cross said in a message it was checking the report.
Two people were also killed in a shooting in the central town of Myingyan, student leader Moe Myint Hein told Reuters.
Based on a tally by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners advocacy group, 464 civilians have been killed since the coup.
Despite the violence, crowds turned out in towns across the country, according to media and social media posts.
One of the main groups behind the protests, the General Strike Committee of Nationalities, called in an open letter on Facebook for ethnic minority forces to help those standing up to the “unfair oppression” of the military.
“It is necessary for the ethnic armed organizations to collectively protect the people,” the group said.
Insurgents from different ethnic groups have battled the central government for decades for greater autonomy. Though many groups have agreed to ceasefires, fighting has flared in recent days between the army and forces in both the east and north.
Heavy clashes erupted on the weekend near the Thai border between the army and fighters from Myanmar’s oldest ethnic minority force, the Karen National Union (KNU).
About 3,000 villagers fled to Thailand when military jets bombed a KNU area after a KNU force overran an army outpost and killed 10 people, an activist group and media said.
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