On February 1, 2021, the army of Myanmar plotted a coup d’état against the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The coup was soon met with popular rejection through street protests and other forms of expression. The military junta has met this dissent with intense repression including an open war on medics who were among the first to oppose the February takeover. This article by Kristen Gelineau and Victoria Milko is published by the Associated Press. Here is an excerpt:

In Myanmar, the military has declared war on health care — and on doctors themselves, who were early and fierce opponents of the takeover in February. Security forces are arresting, attacking and killing medical workers, dubbing them enemies of the state. With medics driven underground amid a global pandemic, the country’s already fragile healthcare system is crumbling.

“The junta is purposely targeting the whole healthcare system as a weapon of war,” says one Yangon doctor on the run for months, whose colleagues at an underground clinic were arrested during a raid. “We believe that treating patients, doing our humanitarian job, is a moral job….I didn’t think that it would be accused as a crime.”

Inside the clinic that day, the young man shot in the throat was fading. His sister wailed. A minute later, he was dead.

Read the full article here.