Originally published 2021-03-23.
In mid-March 2021, families in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, held funeral after funeral for people shot dead by the security forces during protests against the military coup of 1 February. By the third week of March, the monitoring group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) counted more than 250 people killed since the takeover, and the toll was rising almost daily.
This page explains what was happening at those funerals, why the protests began, how the crackdown escalated, and what has happened to Myanmar and its ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi since.
Funerals in Yangon
Hundreds of mourners gathered at cemeteries and crematoriums in Yangon (also known by its older name, Rangoon). Many carried portraits of the dead, and some also held up images of Aung San Suu Kyi. Yangon is the country's commercial centre and was its capital until the military moved the seat of government to Naypyidaw in the mid-2000s.
The Guardian reported that a single Yangon crematorium recorded 31 funerals in one day. Among the dead was Khant Nyar Hein, a young medical student shot by security forces. His grieving mother cried out that the soldiers should kill her instead of her son, a moment that came to stand for the pain of countless families. Mourners responded with a chant heard across the protest movement: "Our revolution must prevail."
Funerals themselves became acts of quiet defiance, with people flashing the three-finger salute borrowed from the Hunger Games films and adopted by pro-democracy movements in Southeast Asia.
Why the military seized power
In the general election of November 2020, Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide, taking 396 of 476 contested parliamentary seats. The military's proxy party won just 33. The armed forces claimed the vote was fraudulent; the election commission rejected those claims (source).
On 1 February 2021, the day before the new parliament was due to sit, the military detained Suu Kyi, who held the post of State Counsellor, a role similar to prime minister, along with President Win Myint and other NLD leaders. Commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing declared a state of emergency and took power.
Within days, doctors and civil servants launched a Civil Disobedience Movement, refusing to work for the junta. Street protests, pot-banging at night and general strikes followed across the country.
The crackdown in Hlaing Tharyar
The worst violence of mid-March was in Hlaing Tharyar, an industrial township on Yangon's western edge with many garment factories and low-income workers. On 14 March, several Chinese-owned factories were set on fire. State media blamed protesters; others suspected the security forces, and no group claimed responsibility.
That day security forces killed dozens of people in the area: at least 38 by early counts, while Human Rights Watch later reported at least 65 deaths (source). The junta then declared martial law in Hlaing Tharyar and neighbouring townships. Residents built barricades from sandbags, tyres and bamboo to slow troops, and many workers packed their belongings and fled to their home villages.
Our related reports covered the shootings of protesters earlier that month and the internet shutdowns the military imposed to stop images getting out.
International reaction and pressure on the press
UN Secretary-General António Guterres repeatedly condemned the violence. As quoted by The Guardian, he said the military was "attempting to overturn the results of a democratic election and is brutally repressing peaceful protesters," and he urged the international community to act together.
Journalists were also targeted. By mid-March dozens of reporters had been detained, and outlets had their licences revoked. A reporter for BBC Burmese, Aung Thura, was reportedly detained in Naypyidaw on 19 March and later freed. An Associated Press journalist, Thein Zaw, spent weeks in custody before charges against him were dropped.
The killing did not stop. On 27 March, the military's Armed Forces Day, at least 114 civilians were reported killed, the bloodiest single day of the protests. By April the AAPP count had passed 700.
The Rohingya background
Myanmar's armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, had faced international accusations of grave abuses long before the coup. In August 2017, a military campaign in Rakhine State drove more than 723,000 Rohingya, a mostly Muslim minority, across the border into Bangladesh, according to UNHCR. Thousands were killed, villages were burned, and survivors described mass rape.
Today well over a million Rohingya refugees live in crowded camps around Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh (source). UN investigators have called for senior generals, including Min Aung Hlaing, to be investigated for genocide, and The Gambia brought a genocide case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice in 2019. The military denies committing genocide.
Earlier reports spoke of up to two million Rohingya fleeing; the documented figures are lower, but the scale of the displacement remains one of the largest refugee crises of the century.
What happened next
The protests of 2021 turned into a wider armed conflict. Ousted lawmakers formed a National Unity Government, and its People's Defence Forces joined ethnic armed groups in fighting the junta. In July 2022 the military executed four pro-democracy activists, Myanmar's first executions in decades. In 2024 it announced compulsory military service for young men and women.
Aung San Suu Kyi was tried in closed military courts on a long list of charges, from importing walkie-talkies to corruption. On 30 December 2022 a court convicted her in the final case, bringing her total sentence to 33 years (Axios). Rights groups called the trials a sham. A partial pardon later cut the sentence to 27 years.
The funerals of March 2021 marked a turning point: the moment many in Myanmar concluded that peaceful protest alone would not reverse the coup. Those who want to follow developments can look to the UN, Human Rights Watch and the AAPP, which continues to document deaths and arrests. For a personal view of that period, see how Thuzar Wint Lwin used the Miss Universe stage to appeal for her country.
Sources: The Guardian, March 2021: reporting on deaths and funerals since the coup; Wikipedia: 2021 Myanmar coup d'état; Wikipedia: 2021 Myanmar protests; Wikipedia: Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh; Axios, 30 December 2022; Wikipedia: Aung San Suu Kyi.
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