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Barricades are seen alongside a highway resulting in Sule Pagoda in Yangon in the course of the Thingyan water pageant, marking the Buddhist new yr on April 13, 2022.
By AFP 13 April 2022
YANGON—Myanmar marked its usually boisterous new yr water pageant with silence and boycotts on Wednesday, as combating between the army and opponents of the coup raged throughout the nation.
The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil for the reason that army ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s authorities final yr, sparking big protests and a bloody crackdown.
The Thingyan water pageant — a part of a cleaning ritual to welcome within the Buddhist new yr — is usually marked by jubilant pandemonium as crowds have interaction in large-scale road water fights.
However thoroughfares in central Yangon had been quiet on Wednesday, with no signal of the normally disruptive festivities, AFP correspondents stated.
One small group — amongst them a number of youngsters and a soldier — did indulge, splashing one another throughout the shelter of a sandbagged safety publish as residents regarded on from the opposite aspect of the road.
There was a heavy safety presence resulting in Yangon’s Sule Pagoda, with barricades barring the best way to a stage the place celebrities carried out conventional songs and choreographed dancers swayed as a part of a junta-sponsored program.
State TV footage additionally confirmed singers and musicians performing conventional Thingyan songs in Myanmar’s second largest metropolis of Mandalay.
However there, too, the temper was somber because the army continues its crackdown on dissent.
“We’ve no plan to have fun the water pageant this yr,” resident Zin Zin instructed AFP, requesting to make use of a pseudonym.
“I don’t exit, and I’m not whether or not others are celebrating. We’re fearful in case one thing may occur.”
In the meantime, native media photos confirmed small anti-junta protests from throughout the nation, with some activists holding banners calling for a boycott of festivities.
New Clashes
As junta-sponsored celebrations passed off, combating between the army and opponents of the coup was reported throughout Myanmar.
Close to Myawaddy within the east, ethnic rebels clashed with junta troops within the newest day of hostilities that native media stories say have despatched tons of fleeing throughout the border into Thailand in latest weeks.
Preventing resumed Wednesday morning alongside the Asia Freeway, which connects Thailand and Myanmar, stated Padoh Noticed Taw Nee, a spokesman for the Karen Nationwide Union, which claims to signify the nation’s Karen minority and has battled the army for many years.
He added that junta troops had known as in a number of airstrikes in latest days.
In northern Sagaing state, media reported junta troops had on Tuesday overrun a publish held by an area “Folks’s Defence Pressure”, a civilian militia that has sprung as much as combat the army.
In a separate incident on Monday, the junta stated its troops had displaced tons of of anti-coup fighters and ethnic rebels from Pinlebu city within the area after days of combating.
A army supply who spoke to AFP on situation of anonymity confirmed that airstrikes had been known as in to assist floor troops and that heavy combating had taken place elsewhere within the area in latest days.
Greater than 1,700 individuals have been killed in a army crackdown for the reason that coup, based on an area monitoring group.
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