Myanmar security forces have opened fire on people gathered for the funeral of one of the 114 people killed on Saturday in the bloodiest day since the February 1 coup, as the defence chiefs of 12 countries condemned the military for its crackdown on demonstrators.
There were no immediate reports of casualties in the shooting at the funeral on Sunday in the town of Bago, near the commercial capital, Yangon, according to three people who spoke to Reuters news agency.
“While we are singing the revolution song for him, security forces just arrived and shot at us,” said a woman called Aye, who was at the service for Thae Maung Maung, a 20-year-old student who was shot on Saturday. “People, including us, run away as they opened fire.”
Two people were killed in firing on protests on Sunday in separate incidents elsewhere, witnesses and news reports said. One person was killed when troops opened fire overnight on a group of protesters near the capital Naypyidaw, Myanmar Now news reported.
So far on Sunday, there were no reports of large-scale protests in Yangon or in the country’s second city, Mandalay, which bore the brunt of the casualties on Saturday. At least six children between the ages of 10 and 16 were among those killed on Saturday, according to news reports and witnesses.
Meanwhile, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States were among the countries that signed a joint statement on Sunday denouncing the military’s crackdown.
“A professional military follows international standards for conduct and is responsible for protecting – not harming – the people it serves,” the defence chiefs said. “We urge the Myanmar armed forces to cease violence and work to restore respect and credibility with the people of Myanmar that it has lost through its actions.”
The other signatories were Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
Several funerals were held on Sunday for some of the victims of the latest crackdown on anti-coup protesters. In Mandalay, the family of Aye Ko, a father-of-four, commemorated his life at a service after he was killed overnight.
“We are told by the neighbours that Aye Ko was shot and thrown into the fire,” a relative told AFP news agency. “He was the only one who fed the family, losing him is a great loss for the family.”
The General Strike Committee of Nationalities (GSCN), one of the main protest groups, paid tribute to those who died, saying in a Facebook post: “We salute our heroes who sacrificed lives during this revolution”. It added, “We Must Win This REVOLUTION.”
Saturday, Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day, had also brought some of the heaviest fighting since the coup between the army and the ethnic armed groups that control swaths of the country.
Military jets killed at least three people in a raid on a village controlled by an armed group from the Karen minority, a civil society group said on Sunday, after the Karen National Union faction earlier said it had overrun an army post near the Thai border, killing 10 people. The air raids sent villagers fleeing into the jungle.
There was no immediate comment from the Myanmar military.
