(8 Mar 2021) Defying a curfew, thousands of residents across Yangon swarmed from their homes on Monday night to try to help around 200 anti-coup protesters trapped in an enclave of streets by Myanmar riot police, who fired guns and threw flash grenades as they sought to make arrests.
The UN's Special Envoy on Myanmar, Tom Andrews, demanded via Twitter that the protesters be released immediately and that what he called "terror tactics" end now.
Several Western embassies, including the US, the EU and the UK issued tweets expressing alarm.
According to accounts and videos on social media, people from across Myanmar's largest city broke the 8pm curfew and come out onto the streets as news of the protesters' predicament spread.
In the Insein district, they spread across road junctions, singing songs, chanting pro-democracy slogans and banging implements together.
The tactic seemed to be to bewilder and overload the police and divert their attention from the group cornered in the Sanchaung area of the city.
It was also a way to show solidarity with them and against the junta.
It was the largest scale rejection of the curfew since it was imposed, early in February, shortly after the military overthrew the elected government.
The nighttime hours have become increasingly dangerous in Myanmar. Police and army units routinely range through neighbourhoods, shooting randomly to intimidate residents and disrupt their sleep, and making targeted arrests.
Security forces have stepped up their attempt to crush opposition to the military coup that so far refuses to be cowed. They have fired live ammunition into peaceful marches and rallies, in a number of towns and cities in the past few weeks, killing more than 50.
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