Originally published 2021-03-25.
On 23 March 2021, seven-year-old Khin Myo Chit was shot and killed inside her family's home in Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city, during a raid by security forces. According to her family, she was hit as she ran towards her father while officers were questioning him. She became one of the youngest known victims of the crackdown that followed the military coup of 1 February 2021.
Her death drew international attention because it happened not at a protest but at home. This article sets out what is known about that day, the wider toll on children, and the political crisis behind it.
Khin Myo Chit, pictured in a family photo shared after her death.
What happened in Mandalay
Security forces were carrying out house raids in parts of Mandalay that day, searching for people linked to the protest movement. Speaking to the BBC, the girl's older sister, May Thu Sumaya, said officers came to search the house for weapons and forced their way in. "They kicked the door to open it," she said. The men then asked her father whether anyone else was inside.
At that moment, the family said, the youngest daughter moved towards her father and an officer opened fire. "Then they shot and hit her," her sister recalled. Relatives reported that the child died within about half an hour, while her 19-year-old brother was beaten and taken away.
These details come from the family's testimony to journalists. The military did not provide a credible public account of the shooting, and independent investigation inside Myanmar was extremely difficult at the time.
Children caught in the crackdown
The charity Save the Children said at the time that more than 20 children had been killed since the coup, and that Khin Myo Chit was among the youngest. It stressed that some had died at home, where they should have been safe, and accused security forces of showing "a complete disregard for human life."
A day earlier, a 14-year-old boy was reported shot dead in Mandalay. In the weeks that followed, the number grew sharply. The United Nations later counted at least 44 children killed during the protest period, a figure that includes a seven-year-old shot at home.
Why Myanmar was in turmoil
Myanmar, also known as Burma, was ruled by the military for most of the decades after 1962. A gradual opening began in the 2010s, and the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won elections in 2015 and again, by a large margin, in November 2020. Suu Kyi held the post of State Counsellor, the country's de facto head of government.
Even during that period, the armed forces kept a powerful role, including guaranteed seats in parliament and control of key ministries. On 1 February 2021, as the newly elected parliament was due to meet, the military seized power, claimed without convincing evidence that the election had been fraudulent, and detained Suu Kyi and other civilian leaders.
Mass protest and civil disobedience
Millions responded with street demonstrations, strikes and a civil disobedience movement that brought hospitals, banks and government offices to a halt. Security forces answered with tear gas, rubber bullets and then live ammunition, along with night raids on homes of suspected protesters and organisers.
The death toll then and later
By the time of Khin Myo Chit's death, monitoring groups had recorded roughly 250 people killed and thousands arrested, among them journalists. Four days later, on 27 March, Armed Forces Day, at least 114 civilians were reported killed, the deadliest single day of the protests.
The killing did not stop as the protests turned into a wider armed conflict. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a Burmese rights group that tracks deaths and arrests, had counted 2,692 people killed by the military by early January 2023.
International reaction
The coup and the violence that followed were condemned by the United Nations, many foreign governments and human-rights organisations. Several countries imposed sanctions on military leaders and military-owned businesses. Child-rights groups used cases such as Khin Myo Chit's to call for an end to the use of lethal force in residential areas and for those responsible to be held to account.
In April 2021, leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed a five-point consensus with the junta's leader that called for an immediate end to violence and for dialogue among all parties. Rights groups later pointed out that the violence continued regardless, and the plan made little progress.
Aung San Suu Kyi herself was put on trial on a series of charges that her supporters and many foreign governments described as politically motivated. By the end of 2022 she had been sentenced to prison terms totalling more than 25 years.
Why her story still matters
Large casualty figures can be hard to grasp. The story of one child, killed in her own home while reaching for her father, made the human cost of the coup impossible to ignore. Remembering her by name is a small way of keeping the focus on the people who lived through Myanmar's crisis, and on the families still waiting for justice.
Sources: Original reporting by the BBC (family testimony and Save the Children statement); 2021 Myanmar protests (Wikipedia) for coup background, UN child toll, 27 March and AAPP figures.
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