Dumpling vendor turned anti-dictatorship protester shot and killed by regime troops in Mandalay Region

The junta’s armed forces shot and killed a well-known local protester as he tried to escape from troops in San Pya ward in Mandalay Region’s Kyaukpadaung township on Thursday morning, eyewitnesses said. 

The victim was identified by locals as Tin Moe, a seller of steamed bao buns and dumplings who had been active in the anti-dictatorship protests in the Kyaukpadaung area. He was in his 50s. 

He was shot at least twice as soldiers and police entered the ward at 11:30am on April 8, residents said. 

“They shot him in the calf first, then they shot him again as he was running and hit him in the back,” a witness told Myanmar Now.

Soldiers carried Tin Moe’s body to a military truck and took it with them, according to eyewitnesses.

His relatives in the ward could only confirm he had been killed when they were notified by the regime authorities to come to the local crematorium that evening because his body was being cremated. 

After Tin Moe’s home was raided by the regime’s armed forces, he went into hiding in San Pya ward, where was killed on Thursday. 

Two protesters were also killed in Kyaukpadaung on March 27, a day of intensified and brutal crackdowns that saw more than 100 civilians murdered by the junta’s troops nationwide. 

Like Tin Moe, the bodies of those two individuals were also seized by soldiers and cremated without their families’ permission. 

According to the advocacy group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), at least 624 people have been killed by the coup regime as of April 8.