Deaths from post-coup crackdown in Myanmar surpass 700

An advocacy group says more than 700 people have so far been killed in the ongoing brutal crackdown by the country’s junta on anti-coup protesters.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said Sunday that at least 701 civilians had been killed since the February 1 coup  across the Southeast Asian country.

Media reports said Saturday that security forces gunned down and killed at least 82 protesters the previous day in the city of Bago, 65 kilometers northeast of the largest city of Rangoon.

The United Nations office in Myanmar said late Saturday that it was following the bloodshed in Bago, where it said medical treatment had been denied to the injured.

A video footage shot early Friday showed demonstrators hiding behind sandbag barricades wielding homemade rifles, as explosions were heard in the background.

Despite the bloodshed, protesters continued to rally in parts of the country.

University students and their professors marched through the streets of second-biggest city Mandalay and the city of Meiktila on Sunday morning.

Protesters in Rangoon, as well as in the city of Monywa called for UN intervention to prevent further bloodshed.

People across the country have been urged to participate in a torchlight protest in their neighborhoods after sunset on Sunday night.

Meanwhile, 19 people had been sentenced to death for robbery and murder by a military court on Friday. They were arrested in Rangoon's North Okkalapa township, one of six areas in the commercial hub currently under martial law.

Myawaddy Bank's biggest branch in Mandalay was targeted on Sunday morning and a security guard was injured in the explosion.

The bank is one of scores of military-controlled businesses that have faced boycott pressure since the coup.

The Myanmar military staged a coup on February 1, ousting the government of Aung San Suu Kyi and imprisoning her and other political leaders.

Since then, waves of protests have been staged in Myanmar, demanding the release of Suu Kyi and other detained figures, and return of power to the ousted government.

The military coup has ignited international outrage and pleas for restraint, as the junta continues a violent crackdown on protesters.  

Thousands of people are also currently being held in detention.

The mounting bloodshed has also angered some of Myanmar's 20 or so armed ethnic groups, who control swathes of territory mostly in border regions. 

The Committee for Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), a group representing the ousted government, recently said in a statement that it had gathered 180,000 pieces of evidence showing alleged rights abuses by the junta, including torture and extrajudicial killings.

A lawmaker for the CPRH, which comprises lawmakers from Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, met UN investigators on Wednesday to discuss atrocities by the junta.

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