5th-6th August, 2021

 

Several KBZ’s KPay accounts used for online fundraising have been frozen by the junta, according to netizens. Fundraisers wrote that they had not received any definite answers from the banks, claiming that donations to Covid patients and displaced civilians had been stopped.

The FBI announced that Phyo Hein Htut, 28, and Ye Hein Zaw, 20, had been detained and charged in the United States over plot to assassinate U Kyaw Moe Tun, Myanmar's permanent representative to the United Nations. According to Myanmar Now, families of the two young men have close ties to the military and they were contacted by a Thailand based 60-year-old arms broker working for the Myanmar military. They received $5,000 from the broker.

Kyaw Moe Tun recently wrote a letter to the UN Secretary-General stating that locals had recently discovered at least 40 civilian bodies in three different places in Kani Town, Sagaing Region, which has seen fierce fighting in recent months between the junta troops and the local PDF areas. Previously, he called for a global arms embargo against the junta.

The NLD's Mandalay Region Chief Minister Dr Zaw Myint Maung has been transferred to Mandalay General Hospital from the Mandalay Obo Prison since 6 July, according to DVB. There have been growing concern over his health as he is a leukemia patient and another NLD leader U Nyan Win died in custody due to the Covid outbreak in the prison. 

The junta-appointed local administrators in Dagon Seikkan Township and South Dagon Township, Yangon Division, were assassinated on 5 August. On the same day, U Win Khaing, a USDP’s MP from Yangon’s Khayan Township, was assassinated by a group of armed men, Khit Thit reported.

On 6 August, NUG announced that it amended the Gambling Act and it would begin selling lottery tickets to the public in order to support CDM civil servants. Hundreds of Myanmar migrant workers, who had been living for months at the quarantine centres in Laos, went on strike on 6 August, demanding the Laos government to allow them returning to their homes, the BBC reported.

The NUG welcomes the appointment of Brunei's Deputy Foreign Minister as Special Envoy for Myanmar, NUG said in a statement on 5 August. The NUG also expressed special concern over the fact that the junta is continuously representing Myanmar at ASEAN-related meetings and called for “preconditions for a possible constructive dialogue with the military junta.”