Data from the mobile network across the country was cut for the second day on Wednesday, reported the internet monitoring service Netblocks. With little information coming out, it is difficult for news organizations and human rights and defense groups to assess and verify the current situation.
Protesters and journalists have relied on their cell phones to broadcast live demonstrations and document police crackdowns, and suppression of information by the military has heightened fears that this could lead to further human rights abuses, murders and arbitrary arrests.
“With the shutdown of the internet, people inside the isolated areas by the military and police have no access to the outside world,” said John Quinley, senior human rights expert at the rights group Fortify Rights. “The junta is trying to prevent any information about the violence they are committing from leaving. The junta is trying to create a total blackout.”
Security forces opened fire at several locations in Yangon just after midnight on Wednesday and several wounded were reported. Meanwhile, barricades made by city residents have also been removed.
A 28-year-old man died of an apparent gunshot wound in an overnight protest in Yangon, said a local journalist and witnesses in Myanmar on Wednesday. Local witnesses reported hearing a loud bang during a peaceful protest, after which the man immediately fell to the ground and started to bleed.
Protesters rushed the man to the hospital, where he was treated, but later died of his injuries. Local media, Myanmar Now, said the incident occurred in the municipality of Mingalar Taung Nyunt during a crackdown on an evening protest. CNN was unable to independently verify whether security forces shot the man.
More than 200 people have been killed since the coup, according to the advocacy group Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners (AAPP). At least 74 people were killed on Sunday alone and another 20 were killed on Monday, the group said. Mass funerals for many of the dead were held in Yangon on Tuesday.
The activists highlighted the special concern for residents of the Yangon district in Hlaingthaya, a poor industrial neighborhood in the northwest of the city that is home to many migrants and workers. One of Yangon’s largest districts and a protest fortress, withstood the impact of Sunday’s casualties and several Chinese-owned factories were set on fire there.
Speaking to Reuters, a union organizer in Hlaingthaya said: “this is like a war zone, they are shooting everywhere,” and added that most residents are afraid to leave the house.
Two doctors told Reuters there were wounded people who needed medical attention in the area, but the army had closed the entrances.
Matthew Smith, CEO of Fortify Rights, said on Twitter that more deaths were reported in Hlaingthaya on Tuesday, however, emergency vehicles were unable to access the area due to roadblocks.
Martial law under the junta regime means that the military commander of the Yangon region receives “full administrative and judicial authority” in the districts where martial law is declared, local media Myanmar Now reported.
In the past, these trials were generally held behind closed doors, outside public scrutiny or proper procedures, and condemnation was almost certain.
In state spokesman Global New Light of Myanmar on Tuesday, Min Aung Hlaing said martial law was enforced after the protests “turned into turmoil and violence”.
“Violent acts have arisen in some areas, such as burning public property and factories. Therefore, security forces have had to deal with the situation very harshly. Protesters have invaded police stations and administrative offices and burned factories,” the report said.
Opposition to the Myanmar junta continues to spread. On Wednesday, the most powerful religious body in the majority Buddhist nation said it would end support for the military by stopping all its activities, according to Myanmar Now.
An abbot told the news agency the State Committee of Sangha Maha Nayaka (MaHaNa), an organ appointed by the government of high-ranking Buddhist monks who oversees the country’s monarchy, asked authorities to end “violent detentions, torture and murder of unarmed civilians “and to” prevent the looting and destruction of public property. “
The situation comes at a time when the junta accuses the UN envoy representing the now-dissolved parliament in Myanmar of treason, an accusation that carries the death penalty.
In response, Sasa, who is out of the country, said he was “proud to have been accused of treason by the military junta”, in a statement posted to his Twitter account on Tuesday.
“It is these generals who commit acts of betrayal every day. Taking what they want for themselves, denying people their rights and oppressing those who stand in their way,” he said.
The impact of the coup and the civil disobedience movement, which has disrupted parts of the country’s economy, is starting to hurt. On Tuesday, the UN World Food Program said that rising food and fuel prices are hampering the country’s poorest ability to feed themselves and their families.
“These rising food and fuel prices are exacerbated by the near paralysis of the banking sector, a slowdown in remittances and widespread limits on the availability of money,” said the WFP.
CNN’s Angus Watson and Akanksha Sharma contributed reporting.