Covid-19 deaths spike amid coup-induced collapse of healthcare system

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The third wave of the pandemic—and the first to hit Myanmar since the coup—has been the deadliest so far

Myanmar’s largest city is in the middle of a full-blown public health crisis, as Covid-19 patients die at an unprecedented rate due to the unavailability of medical oxygen.

While official figures for the country are dire, with 3,461 new cases and 82 deaths on Sunday alone, the actual situation is far worse, according to social welfare groups in Yangon.

The former capital saw at least 105 Covid-19-related deaths over the weekend in just four townships—Mingalar Taung Nyunt, Tamwe, and North and South Dagon—the groups told Myanmar Now.

A volunteer with one organization said that it had received 40 requests for funeral services between Friday and Sunday. Most of the deceased had died of Covid-19 due to a lack of oxygen, he said.

According to another local group called Shin Than Khwint (“Right to Survive”), there were 50 deaths from hypoxemia in South Dagon in the first 11 days of July.

Shwe Thanlyin, another group that assists with final rites for the dead, said that since last Friday, it has handled five more funerals than its usual 15 per day to help families cope with Covid-19 deaths.

Myanmar Now attempted to contact cemetery and municipal government officials responsible for Covid-19-related funerals to confirm these numbers, but its calls went answered.

At a press conference on Monday, junta spokesperson Brig-Gen Zaw Min Tun attempted to allay concerns about the surge in cases, claiming that military hospitals are prepared to deal with the third and deadliest wave of the pandemic.

What he ignored, however, was that the nation’s healthcare system has been all but paralyzed since February 1, when the military seized power in a coup that continues to sow chaos more than five months later.

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Civilians are seen queuing for oxygen in Yangon’s South Dagon Township on July 11. (Photo: Myanmar Now)Civilians are seen queuing for oxygen in Yangon’s South Dagon Township on July 11. (Photo: Myanmar Now)

Among the first to resist the junta were medical professionals at public hospitals, who refused to work under a military dictatorship. This led to the arrest of many who were at the forefront of the battle against the pandemic last year.

Last week, Myanmar reported its worst numbers since the peak of last year’s second wave. The latest death rates are now nearly double what they were in October 2020.

Even more disturbing is the infection rate—figures released by the Ministry of Health and Sport show that nearly a third of those tested for Covid-19 have been found to be infected. This is based on only 15,128 swab tests conducted on Saturday, but gives some sense of the magnitude of the challenges now facing an overwhelmed nation.

Desperate need

Social media has been awash in images and accounts of families desperately trying to track down oxygen and other medical supplies for ailing loved ones. Long lines have formed in Yangon and elsewhere, attesting to the scale of the emergency.

Shwe Thanlyin, which provides medical services for the living as well as funerals for the dead, said that it is receiving more than 300 calls a day from families in need of oxygen.

“We get so many phone calls, it’s like we have smoke coming out of our ears. Hardly a minute goes by without another call asking for oxygen,” said a spokesperson for the group.

Three large oxygen tanks that Shwe Thanlyin received on Sunday morning were empty within 30 minutes, as people flocked to its office in Dagon Seikkan from as far away as Hlaing Tharyar, Insein, and Ahlone townships.

“The important thing is to get enough oxygen. Most cases start with someone coming down with a fever and aching in the first few days, and right after that, their oxygen levels begin to drop. If we don’t give them oxygen in time, we lose them. We have a lot of cases like that,” the spokesperson explained.

A healthy person’s blood oxygen level is around 95%, and anything below 90% is seen as requiring medical attention. However, many patients say they have been turned away from hospitals even when they are clearly in need of assistance.

“According to some patients, there are hospitals that just send people away after a brief examination and others that won’t even let them in, saying they’re full. They’re even sending away the ones with oxygen levels lower than 90%,” said Than Than Soe, who heads South Dagon-based Shin Than Khwint.

Although Shin Than Khwint has a total of 80 oxygen tanks, many who come to the group for help have to wait up to three days to receive oxygen due to overwhelming demand, said Than Than Soe.

“To be honest, it’s been exhausting. It really takes a toll on us to have to keep saying ‘sorry’ to all those people who are so desperate,” she said.

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People queue in the rain for oxygen in front of the Nwe Aye Mosque in Yangon’s Dawbon Township on July 12. (Photo: Myanmar Now) People queue in the rain for oxygen in front of the Nwe Aye Mosque in Yangon’s Dawbon Township on July 12. (Photo: Myanmar Now)

Pushed to the brink

As demand for oxygen continues to climb, the junta has stepped in to ensure that it has complete control over the available supply, by prohibiting both private and state-owned producers from distributing to individuals.

While it denied rumours that it has “raided” oxygen-producing factories, the military said in a statement released on Monday that it has restricted sales of oxygen.

An employee of a state-owned factory located at the Thein Phyu shipyard in Botahtaung Township confirmed this, saying that the factory was under orders to supply the gas exclusively to Covid-19 centres run by the regime.

Unity, a privately-owned producer based in Yangon’s Shwepyitha Township, was similarly instructed not to sell oxygen to civilians after the military bought 62 of its 40-litre tanks on Sunday morning, a source there said.

Meanwhile, crowds continue to gather in hopes of acquiring some of the precious commodity, creating conditions that could actually make matters worse for those already at risk.

“We didn’t know who was or wasn’t infected,” said one man who had joined many others in trying to buy oxygen at the Naing oxygen factory on Sagaing Road in South Dagon.

“If even one person was infected, then we would all be infected. I was only there because I couldn’t stand to watch people around me suffer,” he added.

Volunteer groups say they are also finding it difficult to replenish their stockpiles.

“Right now, a large tank of oxygen will cost you 400,000 kyat [$243]. Even so, you won’t be able to buy it easily. I went to buy some as an emergency backup, but they said they were all out,” said a member of the Yangon Youth Covid Control Task Force.

“I don’t know if it’s because the military council told them not to sell to us anymore. I mean, we’re buying it with our own money, after all,” he added.

A resident of Myawaddy, a town on the Thai-Myanmar border, told Myanmar Now that the flow of oxygen from outside the country has also stalled.

“We can’t import oxygen tanks anymore. They said they were out of stock. We have to wait until the end of the month, even if we order direct from Bangkok,” he said.

All of this has left little room for hope in the near future, as the situation continues to deteriorate in the face of the unchecked spread of a deadly disease and ongoing oppression by a regime that has pushed the country’s people to the brink.

“We survived the first and second waves, but I’m starting to think we’re not going to make it out alive this time. Even if the disease doesn’t kill us, the despair will,” said Shin Than Khwint’s Than Than Soe.

Myanmar Now 

Weekly Update on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar Post-Coup (July 5-11)2021

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COVID19 cases on the rise in conflict-coup torn #Myanmar where the junta’s increased presence has worsened the state of the country’s affairs. Health workers targeted as oxygen shortages leave thousands in despair.

Weekly Update on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar Post-Coup (28 June -4 July)2021

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The people have not lost momentum in their commitment to reject the coup & ongoing militarisation. Protests continue amid calls for more support to IDPs living in remote areas and more international accountability for military crimes committed. The impunity must end! See more in our weekly update

Myanmar Now multimedia reporter among hundreds of detainees released from Insein Prison

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Myanmar Now’s multimedia reporter Kay Zon Nway was among the more than 700 people released from Insein Prison on Wednesday afternoon, according to a family member.

She was arrested on February 27 while covering a protest in Yangon and had been charged under Section 505a of the Penal Code for incitement, which carries a prison sentence of up to three years.

The 27-year-old journalist spent 124 days in detention.

“She called us with someone else’s mobile and told us that she was coming back home,” a relative of Kay Zon Nway told Myanmar Now.

During her four months detention, she had been separated from the other prisoners and placed in a smaller cell with one other female inmate for more than a month until the end of May.

Kay Zon Nway’s separate confinement began weeks after the mid-April start of Ramadan. As a Muslim, she was fasting, and was accused of staging a hunger strike. Prison officials later attributed her punishment to a case of mistaken identity, according to her lawyer.

Also released along with Kay Zon Nway was Ye Myo Khant, photojournalist at the Myanmar Pressphoto Agency, and Aung Ye Ko, a reporter at 7Day News, who were detained on the same day in late February. They were also facing the same charges of violating Section 505a.

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Ye Myo Khant is seen outside Insein Prison on Wednesday following his release (Mg Mark)Ye Myo Khant is seen outside Insein Prison on Wednesday following his release (Mg Mark)At the time of reporting, it was unclear how many journalists who had been charged with incitement were among the more than 2,000 detainees released on Wednesday across the country. Prisoners already convicted and sentenced were not among those who were freed.

Since Wednesday morning, relatives of detainees had been waiting outside prisons across the country to welcome the release of their loved ones. Prison officials only began the release in the late afternoon.

The Irrawaddy reported that six journalists, including Kay Zon Nway, were freed on Wednesday.

Some young activists, protesters, and poets who were arrested for their involvement in anti-coup demonstrations were among the released detainees, according to their family members.

Myanmar Now is still gathering further information on those who were released.

According to the Detained Journalists Information Myanmar, a local project which compiles data on arrested reporters and news outlets under prosecution, 50 journalists were facing trial as of Tuesday four had been convicted of incitement.

Myanmar Now News

Weekly Update on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar Post-Coup

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The junta is continuing its campaign of terror as it indiscriminately shoots at civilians and arbitrarily arrests them with no evidence or just cause. People in Myanmar are continuing to resist ✊ Conflict increased in Kachin State with civilians forced to flee for their safety. Aid is needed, alongside greater protection for the most vulnerable. See more in our weekly update

Released American journalist says Myanmar military using torture to hunt down opposition leaders

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By Helen Regan, Anna Coren, Sandi Sidhu and Salai TZ, CNN Business

'They kick us, they beat us': Journalist on torture inside prison
Hong Kong (CNN Business)Myanmar’s military junta is using torture to extract information from detainees on the whereabouts of senior opposition members and activist leaders, according to an American citizen and journalist who was recently released from a Yangon prison.
Nathan Maung, 44, was detained for more than three months in Myanmar before being deported to the United States on June 15. During that time, he said he endured two weeks in a secretive military-run interrogation center in the country’s biggest city Yangon.
Speaking to CNN Business on Wednesday from Washington, DC, Nathan Maung described his time in the facility as “hell” and said he prepared himself to die there, believing the soldiers would kill him.
He is one of more than 6,200 people arrested since Myanmar’s military, led by Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, seized power in a coup on February 1, according to advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. The military overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and embarked on a bloody crackdown on dissent and on any perceived opposition to its rule. Mass street protests have been suppressed with deadly force.
Former inmates, lawyers and family members of those held have previously told CNN the detainees have been subjected to torture during interrogation and held out of contact from loved ones. Some — including members of the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) Party — have died while in custody, their bodies showing signs of brutal torture.
CNN Business has reached out to Myanmar’s military for comment.
Nathan Maung was detained in Myanmar for more than three months.

Nathan Maung was detained in Myanmar for more than three months.
Despite months of escalating violence, the junta has said it is using restraint against what it called “riotous protesters,” who it accuses of attacking police and harming national security and stability.
Nathan Maung is co-founder and editor in chief of the Myanmar online news site Kamayut Media. He was arrested on March 9 alongside co-founder and news producer Hanthar Nyein, 39, as security forces raided their office.
Though now living in the United States, Nathan Maung said he is “not happy” and feels an overwhelming guilt he was released because of his American citizenship, while his friend and colleague Hanthar Nyein, a Myanmar national, remains incarcerated in the notorious Insein Prison.
“We’ve been through the hell together. So, we should be released together,” Nathan Maung said, his voice cracking with emotion. “I really want him to know that we are not forgetting him. He’s not alone.”
Danny Fenster, another American journalist who was prevented from boarding a flight out of Myanmar on May 24, remains in detention, also in Insein Prison.

Weeks of ‘hell’

Nathan Maung knew something was wrong when a convoy of military trucks full of soldiers pulled up outside Kamayut Media’s office in Yangon. Security forces barged through the door and raided the office, seizing equipment and taking Nathan Maung and Hanthar Nyein with them as they left.
“They sent us to the interrogation center in Mingaladon,” he said, referring to a suburb of Yangon.
There, Nathan Maung said they were beaten, denied water for two days and food for three. They were handcuffed and blindfolded nearly the entire two weeks they were there, he said.
“They started with a blindfold and handcuffs and then started questioning. They kicked our face, hands and shoulder, all the time. For every answer, they beat us. Whatever we answered — whether correctly or incorrectly — they beat us. For three days, non-stop,” he said.
Nathan Maung said the facility had five houses and one big office. Within the buildings, he said, there were four interrogation cells. He said his blindfold was removed on his final day there so he got a look at the room and the buildings.
“In the room there is a CCTV camera, there’s no bed, only a small table and a chair so you sit all day and night,” he said. “You are blindfolded and there is no time to sleep. They won’t let you. They put the handcuffs in front so you can try and sleep like that, but every five minutes they show up and start the questioning.”
The Americans locked up in Myanmar's notorious Insein prison

The Americans locked up in Myanmar’s notorious Insein prison
This torture carried on for eight days, during which the detainees would be moved between the houses and cells.
His colleague Hanthar Nyein bore the brunt of the torture, Nathan Maung said.
“Hanthar was badly treated because he was Burmese national. He had to kneel down on the ground for like two days. His skin was burnt with a cigarette,” he said.
Nathan Maung believes the soldiers were pressuring Hanthar Nyein to hand over his phone password, which would give them access to his encrypted communications and phone records with high profile opposition and activist leaders.
For days, Hanthar Nyein held out from revealing the password, offering them false numbers in the hope his phone would automatically lock anyone out of using it. But the final straw came when the guards threatened to rape him.
“Hanthar couldn’t stand for this and so he surrendered his password and they stopped beating,” Nathan Maung said.
Nathan Maung’s phone broke during the arrest. The beatings stopped for him on the fourth day, he said, when the soldiers discovered he was a US citizen.
“They stopped beating me and started asking questions about why the US government sent me and were giving me US funding, if I was working for the CIA — those kind of stupid questions,” he said. “I said no, I’m a journalist, no one gave me money.”
So, the line of interrogation focused instead on his media company Kamayut Media. He said the soldiers asked about budgets and finances. “They are looking for any fundraising or where we got it,” he said.
Journalists Nathan Maung and Hanthar Nyein in Myanmar.

Journalists Nathan Maung and Hanthar Nyein in Myanmar.
Nathan Maung believed he would die in the interrogation cell.
“I thought, if we survived for two days at the beginning, we’ll be alive … but after that then nobody knows,” he said. “When they started giving us drinking water I thought, OK, we won’t die, we’ll live.”
Nathan Maung said he meditated to help get through the mental and physical trauma. “That’s the only thing that saved us from the hell,” he said.
But his ordeal was not over.
After 15 days, Nathan Maung said he was transferred to a detention center adjoining Myanmar’s Insein Prison, an overcrowded penitentiary of about 10,000 inmates that has a reputation for ill-treatment and terrible conditions. For two more weeks, he was kept in a large cell with about 80 other people — all student activists, protesters, and NLD members, he said. Then he was moved to solitary confinement, where he stayed until his release on June 14.

Stopping the junta’s violence

Nathan Maung and Hanthar Nyein’s treatment in detention are not isolated incidents.
On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch reported that many of the thousands of people arbitrarily detained by the military have been subjected to torture, routine beatings and other ill-treatment since the coup.
“Myanmar’s military and police often hold detainees in custody for extended periods, in overcrowded and unhygienic interrogation centers and prisons. Those detained are frequently kept incommunicado, unable to contact relatives or legal counsel,” the organization wrote in the report. It added the victims “described beatings, burnings from lit cigarettes, prolonged stress positions, and gender-based violence.”
Manny Maung, HRW’s Myanmar researcher and no relation to Nathan Maung, said in a statement that since the coup, authorities have been using torture “without fear of repercussions.”
“The sheer brutality of the beatings and abuse shows the lengths to which Myanmar’s military authorities are going to silence anyone opposing the coup,” she said.
Nathan Maung said he believes he was arrested because the military saw him “as an enemy.”
Protesters smoke behind shields during a demonstration in Yangon on March 1.
Protesters make the three-finger salute of resistance during an anti-coup demonstration in Yangon, Myanmar, on Tuesday, April 27.
He was one of at least 88 journalists arrested since the military takeover as part of a crackdown on independent media. Many media workers have been forced into exile abroad or have fled to rebel-controlled areas in the jungles. Those who remain in the cities have gone into hiding, and swap safe houses every few days to avoid arrest.
“They tortured me because I believe in democracy and human rights and freedom of expression,” Nathan Maung said.
The military junta has struggled to consolidate its power over the whole country, as it continues to face mass public opposition. Large-scale nationwide protests seen in the months following the takeover were brutally suppressed. In their place, local militia groups have formed to defend towns and villages from military violence and battles between junta forces and armed resistance groups are being waged on multiple fronts around the country.
“Civil war is happening now, it’s already a failed state,” Nathan Maung said.
Nathan Maung said the international community cannot stand by while the junta continues to operate with impunity and lawlessness against its people and called for “aggressive action” against the military.
“We don’t have time to wait and see. There are thousands refugees going to flee to the border, a humanitarian crisis happening now,” he said.
Standing in a park, surrounded by beech trees in Washington, DC — thousands of miles away from the cells, the torture, and the violence — Nathan Maung feels torn, but says he plans to return to Asia and base himself in neighboring Thailand to continue fighting for a democratic Myanmar.
“Sometimes, I dream I really went back to prison, because my body is here but my mind is with my friends, my journalists, my country,” he said.
“All my life, I have been working for a free Burma, as citizen and as a journalist. Until I die, I have to work for that. I have to take care of my people. They deserve democracy and human rights,” he said.
— Caitlin Hu contributed to this report.