Myanmar prison gets ‘notorious’ reputation following deaths

/in

Abuse and lack of medical treatment have left 15 political prisoners dead since last May.

At least 15 political prisoners have died at Daik-U Prison in central Myanmar since last May, earning the prison in a remote area of Bago region a notorious reputation for abuse and neglect, aid workers and former prisoners told Radio Free Asia.

The 15 deaths include two since early February, according to sources close to family members. Those two men – 64-year-old Khin Soe and 68-year-old Aye Win – were serving long-term sentences and didn’t have access to health care at the prison, the sources told Radio Free Asia.

Aye Win died on Feb. 9 and had been serving an eight-year sentence that included a conviction under Section 505 (a), which was added to the penal code after the Feb. 1, 2021, military coup d’etat to punish comments or implications that the coup or the military is illegitimate. The cause of his death was unknown.

Junta authorities arrested Khin Soe when they were unable to capture his son, a person close to the family said. His health had worsened in the months before his March 6 death, the family friend said.

ENG_BUR_DaikUDeaths_03182024.1 (2).jpg
Daik-U Central Prison in Bago region is seen in this undated photo. (Citizen journalist)

“We couldn’t do anything,” the friend said. “One of my friends advised us to voice the lack of medical treatment for him through the news media. But we were afraid his family would be made to suffer if we did.”

The junta’s Ministry of Information on Saturday said Khin Soe died from a longtime stomach illness while being transferred from the prison’s hospital to the Daik-U township People’s Hospital. It denied that the prison lacks medical treatment. 

‘Abruptly changed’

Daik-U Prison was built to hold about 1,000 inmates. The first set of prisoners were transferred into the facility in 2017 during a time when the country was led by a civilian government.

After the 2021 coup, prison authorities stopped providing adequate treatment and refused to allow inmates to receive shipments of medicine from outside the prison, former inmates told RFA. 

Former prisoners also said that political inmates suffered physically from frequent interrogation sessions and were malnourished from not getting enough food and water.

They also weren’t allowed to do physical exercise because authorities suspected the exercises would help prisoners flee.

Daik-U Prison has earned a reputation since the coup for being particularly harsh, said Thaik Tun Oo, a member of the Leading Committee for Political Prisoners Network-Myanmar, or PPNM.

“The situation has abruptly changed,” he said. “The prisoners are being kept in a strict and oppressive manner.”

A legal expert in Yangon said the prison is being run in an illegal manner, and should be examined by government officials.

“This type of repression on political prisoners is also not acceptable in terms of social justice,” he said. 

RFA contacted Naing Win, deputy director general of the junta’s Prisons Department, for his comment on the deaths at Daik-U Prison, but he didn’t answer his phone.

In 2023, a total of 34 political prisoners died in prisons nationwide. Among them, 18 were killed in prison and 16 died after not receiving full medical treatment, according to PPNM.

As of March 14, some 26,242 people have been arrested for political reasons since the coup, according to a report from the Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners. Nearly 9,000 of those arrestees are currently serving prison terms, the group said.

RFA News

Human Rights Situation weekly update (March 8 to 14, 2024)

/in ,

Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Mar 8 to 14, 2024

Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Sagaing Region, Magway Region, Tanintharyi Region, Shan State, Kayin State, and Rakhine State from March 8th to 14th. Internet Data and communication were cut off in Myawaddy, Kayin State. 3 elders from the Sagaing Region and Mandalay Region, died in the fire burning of Military Junta. The Military Started calling out the names and letters for Military Service in the Yangon Region and Naypyidaw.

Over 30 civilians died and over 70 were injured by the Military’s heavy and light artillery attacks within a week. 3 underaged children died and 4 were injured when the Military Junta committed abuses. After the Military Junta had arrested the Rohingyas and forced them to give the Military Service, 97 Rohingya people died.

Rescued From Execution, Fathers Weep For Their Sons in Myanmar

/in

Their hands were bound tightly behind their backs for the night. They heard they were going to be executed the next morning.

U Maung Khin Swe recalls a junta officer ordering his men to kill him and nine other civilians captured by retreating junta troops in Rakhine State’s Minbya Township for use as porters and human shields. He believes the officer was the commander.

They were in a forest.

He’s certain, however, that the mass execution was the second order. The first was to kill a cow and a buffalo that had been found. The animals were killed that evening for food; the civilians were to be killed the next morning.

U Maung Khin says he was among 10 porters still alive, after being captured by soldiers retreating from the junta’s 9th Central Military Training School in Minbya Township last month. About 20 civilians had been captured after the school – the last of the junta’s military strongholds in the township – was seized by the Arakan Army on Feb. 26.

As junta troops fled, they rounded up civilians to carry water and other necessities for them during their trek through forests. In total, about 20 were captured and detained. At least three were shot dead before the final night of captivity. What happened to the seven still missing is not yet known.

U Maung Khin Swe had been gathering bamboo in a forest around Sabar Htar village, his home, with his 16-year-old son, Nay Myo Chit, and his son-in-law – 33-year-old Kyaw Myo Hlaing – when they were captured by junta troops.

“We were forced to carry water for them. We were kicked when we slipped,” he says in a video released on Thursday by the Arakan Army. The video shows the testimony of two fathers who, along with their sons, were forced to be porters for junta troops in Rakhine State.

The fathers survived. They are enraged and bewildered.

“They shot my son and son-in-law dead while marching through the forest,” U Maung Khin Swe tells the camera. “I am very angry that they killed my sons. I want the Arakan Army to take severe action against them.”

U Maung Than Myint has a similar story. He and his 18-year-old son Kyaw Win were also grabbed by retreating soldiers while gathering bamboo in a forest.

“I couldn’t stand seeing my son being tied and beaten in front of me. I couldn’t do anything except cry,” he tells the camera.

Like U Maung Khin Swe, and their sons, he was beaten. They were also refused food and water. “We were not allowed to eat food and drink water even though we had to carry things for them,” U Maung Than Myint says. His son was shot dead in the forest, he recalls.

At about 4:50 a.m., as the captured porters waited, with their hands bound behind their backs, for sunrise and execution, soldiers from the Arakan Army attacked. They escaped while their captors were fighting to save their own lives.

In the battle, Arakan Army troops killed several regime fighters, including the lieutenant colonel commanding the fleeing unit.

“We would all have soon been killed by regime forces if we were not rescued by Arakan Army troops. We thank our Arakan Army,” U Maung Than Myint says in the video.

Irrawaddy News

UN seeking more than $850m for Rohingya refugees 

/in

The UN secured barely more than half the aid it requested last year for the million Rohingya people living in deteriorating conditions in Bangladeshi camps, of whom more than half are under 18

Geneva – The United Nations (UN) on Wednesday called for increased support for the many Rohingya refugees languishing in camps in Bangladesh, where funding shortfalls have left many without enough food or other aid.

In its annual response plan to the crisis, the United Nations appealed for $852.4 million to provide desperately needed assistance this year to the mostly Muslim Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and their host communities.

Bangladesh is home to around a million members of the mostly stateless minority, many of whom fled a 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar, where the conflict on the ground has continued to escalate.

Some 95 percent of Rohingya households in Bangladesh are considered vulnerable and remain dependent on humanitarian assistance, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) pointed out in a statement. 

“International solidarity with Bangladesh and refugee protection is needed more than ever as the conflict in Myanmar escalates,” it said.

Last year, the UN and its partners asked countries to provide $876 million to help those caught up in the Rohingya refugee crisis.

But in the end, only $440 million—barely half the requested amount—was provided.

With the humanitarian crisis largely out of the international spotlight, UNHCR warned that significant funding shortfalls in recent years had had “serious implications”.

Many of the refugees were struggling to meet their basic needs, it warned, insisting that “sustained assistance is critically and urgently needed”.

More than 75 percent of the refugee population receiving aid are women and children, it said, cautioning that they are facing “heightened risks of abuse, exploitation and gender-based violence”.

“More than half of the refugees in the camps are under 18, languishing amidst limited opportunities for education, skills-building and livelihoods,” it said.

The UN-led joint response plan to the crisis brings together 117 partners, nearly half of them Bangladeshi organisations.

It will aim to help around one million Rohingya refugees in the Cox’s Bazar camps and on the island of Bhasan Char, along with nearly 350,000 people from host communities.

The money will be used to fund food, shelter, health care, drinking water access, protection services, education and other assistance, the UN said.

Conditions in the overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, where lawlessness is rampant, have seen a growing number of Rohingya attempt dangerous and often deadly sea voyages headed for Malaysia and Indonesia.

There is, meanwhile, little progress towards repatriating the refugees to Myanmar, which is facing a UN genocide probe over the 2017 exodus.

And since then, the country’s military junta seized power in a 2021 coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government.

The military rule in Myanmar, which faces widespread armed resistance, has inflicted unbearable cruelty, UN rights chief Volker Turk warned earlier this month.

“The human rights situation in Myanmar has morphed into a never-ending nightmare, away from the spotlight of global politics,” he told the UN Human Rights Council.

Myanmar Now

Myanmar Junta Kills Three Mandalay Civilians

/in

At least three civilians have reportedly been killed in Myingyan Township, Mandalay Region, by Myanmar’s junta in retaliation for a resistance ambush which killed six soldiers.

On Monday morning, the Pakokku Urban Guerrilla Force from adjacent Magwe Region and other groups ambushed a junta vehicle at the entrance of Myingyan town, killing all six troops on board and seizing seven weapons and ammunition.

Regime forces later detained at least six truck drivers near the site.

On Monday junta forces raided at least five nearby villages and burned houses, displacing hundreds of residents, said Myingyan People’s Strike Committee, which has monitored the junta since the 2021 coup.

Two older women were burned to death in their homes in Thin Pyun and Pyoe Kan villages after being left in the villages, the committee said.

U Soe Tint, 70, was shot dead in Thin Pyun.

Anti-regime groups ambushed raiding troops on Thursday, killing some soldiers, a resident told The Irrawaddy on Thursday.

Residents flee their homes after junta raids on five villages in Myingyan Township this week. / CJ

“The regime forces had not retrieved the dead soldiers this afternoon,” the source said.

Myingyan District reports repeated resistance action with frequent ambushes and drone strikes on regime forces, including in Natogyi, Myingyan, Taungtha and Ngazun towns.

On Tuesday, Myingyan District Drone Strike Team said it and other groups conducted drone strikes on junta troops at Chaung Sone village in Taung Tha Township, killing seven troops and injuring others.

Troops reportedly used two hearses to retrieve the dead soldiers.

The Irrawaddy could not independently verify the reports.

Irrawaddy News

Human Rights Situation weekly update (March 1 to 7, 2024)

/in ,

Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Mar 1 to 7, 2024

Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Sagaing Region, Mandalay Region, Tanintharyi Region, Rakhine State, Shan State, and Kachin State from March 1st to 7th. Internet Data and communication were cut off in Kachin State and Sagaing Region. A political prisoner from Daik-U Prison in Bago Region died from the lack of medical treatment and care. 2 women from Magway Region, died by the rape of Military Junta. The military Junta called out and took the civilians from Naypyidaw to give Military Service and collected the lists in Yangon Region, Mandalay Region, Bago Region, and Kachin State and forced the civilians to comply with the Conscription Law.

Over 10 civilians died and almost 30 were injured by the Military’s heavy and light artillery attacks within a week. 3 underaged children were injured and 1 died when the Military Junta committed abuses. After the announcement of the Conscription Law, the Military Junta blackmailed and took money from the civilians by using various ways and authority.