Ye Yint Naing was just 15 years old when he died. A bullet hit him in the back, and he fell to the ground. Everyone else around him also dropped, as the bullets continued to fly. No one dared try to help him.
“They kept shooting,” his brother recalled. “They shot at anybody who tried to get up. So he just lay there for about two hours.”
Ye Yint Naing died on March 27, the day that saw the highest number of casualties from crackdowns on anti-coup protests since Myanmar’s military seized power on February 1.
Like countless others around the country, Ye Yint Naing had joined a protest to mark Anti-Fascist Resistance Day, in defiance of the junta that called the same occasion Armed Forces Day.
“He said that if he didn’t take part in the protest, he couldn’t call himself a true native of Muse,” his mother, Moe Moe, told Myanmar Now, referring to Ye Yint Naing’s hometown in northern Shan state.
“I couldn’t stop him. So he left home and went to the protest,” she said, recalling the last time she saw her son alive.
The following morning, Ye Yint Naing’s family received what was left of him—not his lifeless body, but a pile of charred bones. The authorities assured them they were his.
The soldiers who dragged his body away after the protest deposited it at a local municipal cemetery, where it was cremated despite the fact that the practice is forbidden by Islam, the family’s religion.
According to a social welfare group familiar with the case, no attempt was made to locate the family of the deceased boy before the cremation. The military simply labelled his body an “ownerless corpse” and disposed of it without further ceremony.
“The army wanted to annihilate my brother. He was only 15 years old. They brutally murdered him. They should at least have returned his body to us,” his brother said.
Consigned to flames
There have been numerous reports all over the country of bodies being destroyed by the military before families could identify them or perform religious rites. In many cases, they are never recovered at all.
In the southern Shan towns of Kalaw and Aungban, at least 10 bodies have been cremated without the knowledge of family members, according to local residents.
On March 19, at least 11 people were murdered by regime forces during a crackdown in Aungban. Six of the bodies were later seen being transported to Kalaw, where they were cremated at the town’s cemetery at around 4am the next morning, witnesses who saw the bodies said.
The identities of the six victims could not be established, and may never be known due to the fact that there are no identifiable remains.
A little more than a week later, the same thing happened again. On March 28, at around 9 pm, the army was seen cremating at least three bodies in Kalaw’s cemetery, a resident of the town told Myanmar Now.
The next day, a Shan state-based news outlet, Kanbawza Times, reported that some burnt bones had been found at the cemetery in Aungban.
Similar cases have been reported in Mandalay, the site of some of the worst violence in the country and the scene of one of the most horrific murders committed by junta forces.
On the night of March 27, the day that the regime killed Ye Yint Naing and more than 150 others around the country, troops entered Min Te Ei Kin ward in Mandalay’s Aungmyaythazan township and opened fire on local residents.
One man, 40-year-old Aye Ko, was shot in the chest while attempting to put out a fire started by some unidentified men shortly before the regime’s forces arrived. The wounded man was then placed on a pile of burning tires and forced to remain there until he died. His body was burnt beyond recognition.
Funerals under fire
Many of those killed have died in custody, either after sustaining injuries before their arrest or as a result of torture. In most of these cases, families are only permitted to hold perfunctory funerals, at best.
Still others are murdered in their homes, such as 7-year-old Khin Myo Chit of Mandalay, who was shot in the stomach while sitting on her father’s lap. To give her a proper funeral, her family had to go into hiding and perform a brief service with only a few close relatives in attendance.
Most, however, are killed during crackdowns on protests, when those who suffer fatal injuries are sometimes left behind in the ensuing confusion. Their bodies are later collected by junta troops, in many cases never to be seen again.
According to various social welfare groups in Mandalay, at least 10 victims of regime atrocities have disappeared in the city in this way in recent weeks.
The body of Myo Thant Soe, a 23-year-old protester who was shot and killed in Mandalay’s Sein Pan quarter on March 13, was taken 42 miles away to a military hospital in Pyin Oo Lwin, a family member told Myanmar Now.
Only after his family pleaded with relatives of some high-ranking military officials were they able to recover the dead man’s body.
“I begged them to allow us to hold a small funeral. We had to pledge not to take any photos. They even posted armed guards at the funeral,” a member of Myo Thant Soe’s family said on condition of anonymity.
But this was not as bad as what happened at the funeral of Thae Maung Maung, a 20-year old student who was shot dead in Bago.
“We were holding wreaths and black-peacock flags, which symbolize grief, when we arrived at the cemetery. That’s when we came under fire from somewhere outside the cemetery. We had to run into the forest to escape,” said one person who attended the funeral on March 28.
As the entire nation mourns the death of its nascent democracy, such incidents serve as a reminder that this is not merely a political struggle, but a matter of life and death for a growing number of ordinary citizens who long only for the return of some semblance of human decency in their lives.
