On Saturday, March 27, 2021, the Myanmar security forces massacred 114 people including children, the bloodied day since the start of the military coup on February 1. At least six children between the ages of 10 and 16 were among those killed on Saturday, according to news reports and witnesses. Protesters call the victims “Fallen Stars”.
On Sunday, when the moaners went to attend a funeral service of a 20-year-old student Thae Maung Maung in Bago near the commercial capital Yangon, the Myanmar security forces opened fire at the mourners who fled the spot.
A woman called Aye said, “While we are singing the revolution song for him, security forces just arrived and shot at us,” She added, “People, including us, run away as they opened fire.”
It is reported that another 12 people were recorded dead in incidents elsewhere in Myanmar by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners advocacy group on Sunday, thus taking its total toll of civilians killed since the Feb. 1 coup to 459.
After military airstrikes on one of several ethnic militias, over three thousand villagers in a border area fled to Thailand after military jets bombed areas controlled by the Karen National Union (KNU) militia near the border, an activist group and local media said.
Fighting also erupted on Sunday between another armed group, the Kachin Independence Army, and the military in the jade-mining area of Hpakant in the north. The Kachin forces attacked a police station and the military responded with airstrikes, Kachinwaves media reported.
Presently, there are no reported protests in Yangon or Mandalay over the massacre by the Myanmar security forces casualties on Saturday. However, the people in Mandalay surrounded a police station late in the evening, accusing the security forces of arson after five houses burned down, residents said. Citizens are brutally beaten and tortured.
Poppy McPherson, Myanmar bureau chief journalist at Reuters shared a heartbreaking picture of an 11-year-old girl killed in the massacre.
“Coloring books and a Hello Kitty drawing. The body of Aye Myat Thu, an 11-year-old killed in Mawlamine, at her funeral today. She was among more than 100 people killed in #Myanmar yesterday.”
Coloring books and a Hello Kitty drawing. The body of Aye Myat Thu, an 11-year-old killed in Mawlamine, at her funeral today. She was among more than 100 people killed in #Myanmar yesterday.#WhatIsHappeningInMyanmar pic.twitter.com/oLbMPOtZ5p
— Poppy McPherson (@poppymcp) March 28, 2021
The UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews said, “UN Sec Council can act against junta atrocities in Myanmar. It’s their job. Members should urgently produce a resolution on #Myanmar & put it to a vote. Nations who stand with the people of Myanmar can work together to stop the flow of junta revenue & weapons & hold them accountable
UN Sec Council can act against junta atrocities in Myanmar. It's their job. Members should urgently produce a resolution on #Myanmar & put it to a vote. Nations who stand w the people of Myanmar can work together to stop the flow of junta revenue & weapons & hold them accountable pic.twitter.com/0fRQUZ67dU
— UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews (@RapporteurUn) March 28, 2021
A citizen shared a distressing picture of a wounded perhaps dead child.
One civilian got headshot by sniper in Taunggyi and many people got injured. Locals said military thugs are also using machine guns.
Another teenager, a 16-year Muslim boy got killed in MuSé by gunshots of military junta terrorists. The body got taken away and burnt. Not even ash was returned to the family.
The bloodshed drew renewed Western condemnation. The U.N. Special Rapporteur for Myanmar said the army was carrying out “mass murder” and called on the world to isolate the junta and halt its access to weapons.
On Facebook, one of the main protest groups, the General Strike Committee of Nationalities (GSCN), wrote on Facebook, “We salute our heroes who sacrificed lives during this revolution and We Must Win This REVOLUTION.”
Tun Khin, a Rohingya activist said, “5-year-old girl was shot and killed by #MyanmarMilitaryTerrorists in #Mandalay .Death toll is increasing in Mandalay.I can feel the pain of her parents.
5 year old girl was shot and killed by #MyanmarMilitaryTerrorists in #Mandalay .Death toll is increasing in Mandalay.I can feel the pain of her parents. #WhatsHappeninglnMyanmar #Myanmar #Burma#March27Coup #MilkTeaAlliance
— Tun Khin (@tunkhin80) March 27, 2021
Countries including the United States, Britain, Germany, and the European Union again condemned the violence.
“It’s terrible, it’s absolutely outrageous,” U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters in Delaware. “Based on the reporting I’ve gotten an awful lot of people have been killed totally unnecessarily.”
The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, called on Myanmar’s generals to stand down from what he called a “senseless path” of violence against their own people.
“We will continue to use the EU’s mechanisms, including sanctions, to target the perpetrators of this violence, and those responsible for turning back the clock on Myanmar’s path of democracy and peace,” Borrell said in a statement.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Twitter: “We will not tolerate the military’s brutal course of action against the people of Myanmar”.
U.N. Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews said the junta should be cut off from funding, such as oil and gas revenues, and from access to weapons.
“Words of condemnation or concern are frankly ringing hollow to the people of Myanmar while the military junta commits mass murder against them,” he said.
The top military officer from the United States and nearly a dozen of his counterparts said a professional military must follow international standards for conduct “and is responsible for protecting – not harming – the people it serves”.
Myanmar’s military seized power stating that the November elections won by Suu Kyi’s party were fraudulent, an assertion dismissed by the country’s election commission.
Sanctions imposed by some Western nations and foreign condemnation have not made any impact on Myanmar’s military leaders, nor have the almost daily protests in Myanmar since the military coup took over and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi in an undisclosed location along with other members of her party.