Mandalay woman shot and killed in parked car by junta troops 

A woman was shot dead by junta soldiers while sitting in a car parked in front of a Mandalay hospital on Wednesday afternoon, according to area residents. 

Thirty-year-old Ni Ni Win, also known by her ethnic Chinese name Ah Wei, was in the backseat of the vehicle when the bullet fatally hit her left eye.

In the driver’s seat was Thein Than Tun, 24, who was also injured when the bullet first hit his left cheek. 

Their car was parked in front of the Workers’ Hospital in Mandalay’s Aungmyay Tharzan Township when the shooting took place. 

The military-run propaganda newspaper The Mirror reported the incident on Thursday, describing the pair as having been hit “accidentally” by a stray bullet aimed at a man on a motorbike who had allegedly thrown a homemade explosive at regime troops. 

An eyewitness said that the soldiers had been trying to apprehend two delivery drivers, who he added had not been seen throwing an explosive device at the troops.

“They didn’t throw explosives. They were delivering wafers. The bullet didn’t hit them but those who came to get Covid-19 vaccinations,” the Mandalay resident said, asking not to be named out of fear of reprisal.  

Locals speculated that Ni Ni Win and Thein Than Tun may have been vaccinated just before Ni Ni Win was shot and killed. The military council has been providing Covid-19 vaccines at the town hall, the Sangha Hospital, and Workers Hospital in Mandalay since late April. 

Despite the ongoing pandemic, many pro-democracy supporters have refused to get vaccinated under the coup regime, saying it would violate the ongoing national boycott of the military-controlled healthcare system. 

More than 760 people have been killed by the junta’s armed forces since the coup on February 1. The regime has issued false claims about the murders of protesters by its police and soldiers. 

They have attributed even high profile deaths—including Kyal Sin in Mandalay, Mya Thwe Thwe Khaing in Naypyitaw and Tin Nwe Yi in Yangon—to violence perpetrated by other protesters or to natural causes, regardless of the evidence proving otherwise.