Myanmar crackdown: security forces surround striking rail workers’ compound as UN fails to agree on anti-coup statement

The railway staff in Yangon are part of a civil disobedience movement that has crippled government business since the military’s coup on February 1

Elsewhere in the city, it has emerged that Buddhist monks used catapults to injure anti-coup protesters at a monastery after it became the site of an ugly brawl

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Residents look on as soldiers block a road near Mahlwagone Railway Station in Yangon on Wednesday after arriving to arrest staff involved in a civil disobedience movement in protest over the military coup. Photo: AFP

Published: 1:23pm, 10 Mar 2021Updated: 8:13pm, 10 Mar 2021

Myanmar security forces launched tear gas and surrounded hundreds of anti-junta protesters at two places in Yangon on Wednesday, witnesses said, prompting the US Embassy to call for their withdrawal.

In New York, the United Nations’ Security Council failed to agree on a statement that would have condemned the coup in Myanmar, but called for restraint by the military and threatened to consider “further measures”.

Talks on the statement would likely continue, diplomats said, after China, Russia, India and Vietnam all suggested amendments late on Tuesday to a British draft, including removal of the reference to a coup and the threat to consider further action.

Police stormed a compound in Yangon housing railway staff and surrounded hundreds of protesters in North Okkalapa district, in another part of the city, on Wednesday. More than 100 people were arrested at the two sites, witnesses said.

Many of the railway staff are part of a civil disobedience movement that has crippled government business and included strikes at banks, factories and shops since the army ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in a coup on February 1.

“We are seeing reports of innocent students and civilians surrounded by security forces in North Okkalapa, as well as arrests,” the US Embassy said in a statement.