Conflicts & War

Package bomb kills 5 people in Myanmar, including ousted lawmaker

Bangkok, May 4 (EFE).- Five people, including an ousted lawmaker and three police defectors, were killed in a blast from a parcel bomb while hiding in a house in the city of Bago, 70 kilometers (43 miles) from Yangon, according to local media reports on Tuesday.

Thet Win Hlaing, a regional lawmaker from the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party overthrown in the Feb. 1 military coup and whose leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, remains under house arrest, was among those killed in the blast that occurred on Monday evening, the Myanmar Now news portal reported.

The three deceased police officials had joined the civil disobedience movement against the military junta.

The fifth victim was the owner of the house while another police defector was seriously injured, witnesses told Myanmar Now.

The cause of the explosion is unknown although sources said that it was a package bomb.

“As far as I know, the explosion went off when they opened a package,” a local source told the news outlet on grounds of anonymity.

Minutes after the explosion, a truck loaded with Myanmar soldiers arrived in the area.

Blasts have been reported in Yangon and other cities in recent weeks, sometimes targeting government offices or military facilities.

There has been an escalation of violence in Myanmar since the coup.

At least 766 civilians have died as a result of brutal repression by the security forces, most of them shot by soldiers, according to figures by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners advocacy group.

The military is also engaged in clashes in border areas with various ethnic guerrillas, who have joined the opposition against the military junta as well as small armed groups of civil resistance that have emerged.

The Kachin Independence Army (KIA), one of the most powerful ethnic rebel groups in the country, shot down a military helicopter on Monday during clashes in the north of the country, a spokesperson of the group told local media.

The military junta justifies their coup alleging electoral fraud in the November election, which ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won by a landslide and international observers considered free and fair. EFE

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