Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Myanmar on Sunday for a ninth day of anti-coup protests, while the new armies struggled to contain a strike by government workers that could paralyze their ability to run the country.
Trains in parts of the country stopped running after staff refused to go to work, local media reported, while the army deployed soldiers to power stations only to be confronted by angry crowds.
When the evening dawned, armored vehicles were seen for the first time since the coup in the commercial capital Yangon, witnesses said.
A civil disobedience movement to protest the February 1 coup that ousted the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi began with doctors. It now affects a number of government departments.
The junta has ordered civil servants to return to work and threaten to act. The army carried out nocturnal mass arrests and on Saturday gave large forces to detain people and search private property.
Hundreds of railway workers joined the protests in Yangon on Sunday, even as police went to their homes on the outskirts of the city to get them back to work. According to a live broadcast by Myanmar Now, police were forced to leave after angry crowds gathered.
Soldiers were deployed to power stations in the northern state of Kachin, leading to a confrontation with protesters who said they believed they would cut off electricity to arrest.
“The army has been trying to control the power sources since yesterday,” said Awng Kham, a local politician. “They may be able to control the power during the night while doing business at night.”
Several power departments in Yangon said in Facebook reports that they would refuse to cut power and expressed support for the protesters. “Our duty is to give electricity, not to cut,” said one staff member, who, for fear of retaliation, asked not to be named, adding that some colleagues were participating in the strike.
The government and the military could not be reached for comment.
Engineering students marched through downtown Yangon, the largest city, on Sunday, wearing white. They carried posters demanding the release of ousted leader Suu Kyi, who has been in custody since the coup and charged with importing walkie-talkies.
A fleet of highway buses slowly rolled through the city with horns screaming, part of the biggest street protests in more than a decade.
Download the NBC News app for news and politics
A convoy of motorcycles and cars drove through the capital Naypyitaw. In the southeastern coastal town of Dawei, a group of drums played as crowds marched under the hot sun. In Waimaw, Kachin State, crowds carried flags and sang revolutionary songs.
Many of the protesters nationwide held images of Suu Kyi.
Her arrest is due to expire on Monday. Her lawyer, Khin Maung Zaw, could not be reached for comment on what was going to happen.
More than 384 people have been detained since the coup, the monitoring group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said in a spate of mostly arrests.
Late Saturday, the military re-enacted a law requiring people to report visitors to their homes overnight, allowing security forces to detain suspects and search private property without court approval, and recommends the arrest of well-known supporters of mass protests.
President Joe Biden announced last week that his government would impose sanctions on those involved in the coup, demanding that the country immediately return power to the country’s democratically elected government.