After soldiers murdered him in cold blood on CCTV, military claims teenager died falling from motorbike

A military hospital claimed on Tuesday that a 17-year-old shot by a soldier in Dawei on Saturday died from falling off a motorbike, even though his murder was captured on CCTV and the footage widely shared on social media. 

The harrowing video showed a soldier on the back of a truck shoot at Kyaw Min Latt as he and two other people rode by on a motorbike on Arzarni Road. 

The bike fell and the two other riders ran away. Soldiers then carried Kyaw Min Latt and dumped him on the back of a second truck. He passed away on Tuesday morning at a military hospital in the Tanintharyi capital. 

The hospital issued a death certificate that said he died from a “severe primary brain injury due to fall from cycle”. Photos published by the Dawei Watch news outlet showed a bullet wound in his neck. 

His injury was about one inch deep, the outlet reported, citing one of his family members. The hospital informed the family he had died on Tuesday after his condition worsened on Monday evening.  

“I visited him at the hospital on the evening of the day he was injured. He’d lost consciousness” his father, Soe Soe, told Myanmar Now. “On the second day, his eyes opened but he couldn’t speak. I thought he would recover.” 

Staff at the hospital didn’t talk to the family about Kyaw Min Latt’s injury. Soe Soe declined to comment on the cause of his son’s death. “I just feel sad. I have nothing else to say,” he said.

The attack on Kyaw Min Latt was random and unprovoked. He was not participating in an anti-coup protest when he was shot and the street appeared quiet in the CCTV footage. 

A 50-year-old man was also shot dead in Dawei on the same day, and at least 114 were murdered nationwide, including children. 

As the killings went ahead in around 50 towns and cities, top junta officials celebrated Armed Forces Day in Naypyitaw followed by a state dinner.