7th-8th August, 2021

 

To mark the 33rd anniversary of the 8888 uprising, street protests erupted across the country again on 8 August. Anti-coup slogans were also heard from Obo Prison in Mandalay around 9 pm, according to DVB.

PDFs also announced that they launched attacks on the junta troops in commemoration of 8888’s martyrs. The Magway-based PDF announced that it carried out a bomb attack against an arsenal inside the junta’s Magway air base. On the night of 7 August, a firefight broke out between a captain and soldiers at Kyauktaw Airport in Magway Region as soldiers had not received their salary. Zalen Media reported that about 10 soldiers fled from the outpost with their weapons.

Khit Thit reported that unidentified gunmen on car shot the junta troops deploying inside the MRTV compound in Yanong on the night of 7 August. According to reports on social media, a nearby doctor was wounded by the shooting. Some junta troops were reported injured or dead. A naval captain in plainclothes was shot dead on the evening of 7 August in Yangon’s Khayan Township, according to Khit Thit.

A local PDF member told Myanmar Now that they took revenge against a man who had assassinated a poet and social worker in Monywa on 14 May. Well-known surgeon Dr Maung Maung Nyein Tun, who had been arrested on suspicion of having links with the NUG, passed away at Mandalay General Hospital on 8 August after contracting Covid-19 in prison, the BBC reported.

The court adjourned the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been charged with 11 counts. According to Myanmar Now, some of the five lawyers representing her were forced to sign a confession by the local administrators in Yangon on the night of 6 August to refrain from speaking to the media.

Mizzima reported that the junta troops seized a vehicle carrying weapons and arrested two men on 8 August on the Mandalay-Mogok road in Madara Township, Mandalay Region. Locals told Myanmar Now that the junta troops had asked the local militia for reinforcement in order to fight against the People's Defense Forces (PDF) based in southern Shan State.

A second shipment of 1 million Chinese Sinovac vaccines purchased by Myanmar arrived at Yangon International Airport on 8 August, according to Popular News. According to the Chinese embassy, the Chinese have sold 2 million doses of Sinovac vaccine to Myanmar and donated 2.5 million doses of Sinopharm vaccine.