NLD’s Yangon headquarters targeted in arson attack 

An unidentified group of people carried out an arson attack at the National League for Democracy (NLD) party headquarters in Yangon’s Shwegondaing Township early Friday morning, CCTV footage of the site shows. 

At least three men could be seen in the footage at around 4:15am setting the fire. Local residents were able to extinguish it 30 minutes later, according to an eyewitness. 

The doors to the office, as well as furniture and a water pump, were destroyed in the attack. A party member told Myanmar Now that they would file a lawsuit over the incident. 

Residents tried to put out the fire using public water hydrants, but there was no water supply at the time, an eyewitness said. 

“The strange thing was that the water was cut off. There was no water supply at all around the office. There was no water from the hydrants when we tried to put out the fire,” he said. “We had to use buckets of water. It’s lucky that there were fire extinguishers ready.”

The local fire service arrived after the fire had already been extinguished, but they did not bring a water supply with them to the scene of the attack.  

Soldiers and police also raided the NLD’s Yangon headquarters on February 9, more than one week after the military seized power from the NLD government in a coup.