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Soldier kills 7-year-old girl as she sits in her father’s lap during raid on Mandalay home

A 7-year-old girl was among three people killed in a military raid on a neighbourhood in Mandalay’s Chanmyathazi township on Tuesday afternoon, relatives and locals told Myanmar Now. 

Khin Myo Chit was shot in the abdomen by a soldier while she sat in her father’s lap inside her home in Aung Pin Le ward, said her elder sister, Aye Nyein San.

The coup regime’s forces arrived in the area with motorbikes and other vehicles around 4pm, she said. Soldiers and police then kicked in the door of her family’s house and came inside, she added.

“They stormed into our house insolently,” Aye Nyein San said. “Everyone who was at home was told to sit.” 

“They asked if everyone in the house was there. My father responded that that was everyone. Khin Myo Chit was sitting in our father’s lap. One of them said my father was lying and looked around,” she said.

The father repeated that the six family members present in the room were the only people in the house, and a soldier said he was lying and shot at him, Aye Nyein San added. But the bullet hit Khin Myo Chit instead, she added. 

The soldiers then beat her 19-year-old brother with the butts of their guns until he was bloody and took him away.

“We couldn’t stop them from taking him,” Aye Nyein San said. “They said: ‘you want us to shoot at you again?’” 

“My father also didn’t know what to do because the kid was in his arms… They told him to give them the kid,” she said, but her father refused. 

After the soldiers left, family members rushed Khin Myo Chit to the hospital but doctors couldn’t save her, she said. “We are in so much pain. We are grieving for the kid and worrying for the other one.”

Two other people were killed in Aung Pin Le ward on Tuesday, residents said. They are Tin Soe Oo, who was in his 30s, and 20-year-old Chan Thar Htwe.

Residents said they did not know why the military raided Aung Pin Le as there were no protests at the area on Tuesday. 

On Sunday, regime forces shot at locals in the same ward who tried to stop them from removing sandbags and makeshift barricades from the streets. A 53-year-old street vendor named Tut Kyi was killed during the attack.

That same evening police and soldiers killed at least six others during attacks in two other townships — Pyigyitagon and Chanayethazan. There were several reports that regime forces took away some of the dead bodies.

Fifteen-year-old Zaw Myo Htet, a waiter at a tea shop in Chanayethazan, was shot in the head.

The Mandalay In-depth News website reported that at least nine were killed on Sunday in Mandalay. Myanmar Now was able to independently verify seven deaths.

On Monday, armed forces raided the Mya Yee Nandar housing complex and killed at least eight people, including a 14-year-old boy and two rescue workers.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners has said at least 275 people, including several teenagers, have now been killed by the military regime’s armed forces since the February 1 coup.

On Wednesday Myanmar’s citizens and businesses will observe a nationwide “Silence Strike” to counter the regime’s effort to reopen businesses and government offices. 

Members of the public have been urged to stay home and pay tribute to those who have died fighting the regime. Several major businesses, including City Mart, Grab, and The Pizza Company have announced they will close for the day.

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