Yangon residents flee to rural areas amid deadly crackdown

YANGON • Roads out of Yangon were choked yesterday with people fleeing the junta's deadly crackdown on anti-coup dissent, as media reports said nine people were shot dead by security forces.

The military and police have used increasingly violent tactics to suppress demonstrations by supporters of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been detained since the military coup on Feb 1.

But that has not put off the protesters, with crowds turning out again in several towns.

Security forces opened fire in a confrontation in the central town of Aungban as they tried to clear a protesters' barricade, the media and a witness reported.

"Security forces came to remove barriers but the people resisted, and they fired shots," the witness, who declined to be identified, said by telephone.

An official with Aungban's funerary service, who declined to be identified, told Reuters that eight people were killed, seven on the spot and one wounded person who died after being taken to a hospital in the nearby town of Kalaw.

The spokesman for the junta was not immediately available for comment, but has previously said that security forces use force only when necessary.

Critics have derided that ex-planation.

One protester was killed in the north-eastern town of Loikaw, the Myanmar Now news portal said, and there was shooting in the main city of Yangon, but no word on casualties.

Demonstrators were also out in the city of Mandalay, the central towns of Myingyan and Katha, and Myawaddy in the east, witnesses and the media reported.

The total number killed in weeks of unrest has risen to at least 233, according to the latest report and a tally by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners group.

Myanmar's United Nations envoy Kyaw Moe Tun, who publicly broke with the junta, said in New York that ousted lawmakers were exploring whether the International Criminal Court can investigate crimes against humanity since the coup.

The junta this week imposed martial law on six townships in Yangon, the nation's former capital and commercial hub, putting nearly two million people under direct control of military commanders.

Yesterday, local media showed traffic clogging up a main highway going north out of Yangon, reporting that people were fleeing the city for rural areas.

"I no longer feel safe and secure. Some nights, I am not able to sleep," said a resident near one of the districts where security forces have killed protesters this week.

"I am very worried that the worst will happen next because where I live... is very intense, with security forces taking people from the streets."

The woman said she had bought bus tickets for her home state in Myanmar's west and will leave in a few days.

Across the Myanmar border in Thailand's Tak province, the authorities said they were prepa-ring shelters for an influx of potential refugees.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has expressed its heightened concern over cameras armed with artificial intelligence technology that can scan faces and vehicle licence plates in public places, and alert the authorities to those on a wanted list.

Mr Win Pe Myaing, a protester in Yangon, said: "Even before the protests, the CCTVs were a concern for us, so we would try and avoid them by taking different routes to go home, for example.

"We believe the police and the military are using the system to track demonstrations and protests. It is like a digital dictatorship - the regime is using technology to track and arrest citizens, and that is dangerous," he said.

The UN human rights office said this week that about 37 journalists had been arrested.

Two more were detained in the capital Naypyitaw yesterday while covering a hearing for an arrested member of Ms Suu Kyi's party, said the Mizzima news portal, which employed detained journalist Than Htike Aung.

The other detained reporter was Mr Aung Thura of the BBC, which said the two journalists were taken away by unidentified men.

It called on the authorities to help find its accredited journalist and confirm that he was safe.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS