A 22-year-old anti-coup protester who was shot and injured before being detained during a raid in Mandalay on Saturday morning has died in military custody, two protest organisers have told Myanmar Now.
Ye Yint was among nine protesters who were detained when about 30 soldiers and police raided a house they were staying in in Patheingyi Township’s Nan Oo Lwin neighbourhood.
He was shot in the pelvis while another young protester, 22-year-old Khaing Tun, was shot in the leg during the raid.
“Two kids tried to run in panic and one was shot in his leg,” said one of the protest organisers. “The other one got shot in the back and the bullet went cleanly through his pelvis.”
The detainees were brought to Mandalay Palace, which houses the military’s Central Command headquarters, and Ye Yint’s family was told at around 4pm that he had died, the second organiser said: “His wife told us.”
As of 8pm, the family still had not been able to retrieve his body, the organiser added. Myanmar Now was unable to reach his relatives for comment.
Three other protesters were detained in Mandalay on the morning that Ye Yint and Khaing Tun were shot.
They were captured in Mahar Aung Myay Township after a military-owned vehicle rammed into their motorcycles as they rode back from a march led by Mandalar University students. One of those detained, Zin Myo Khant, is 17 years old.
Late last month Thu Thu Zin, 25, was shot in the head and killed at a protest near the Mahamuni pagoda in Mandalay. Her family had to hold her funeral without her body because the military would not let them retrieve it.