Bullets for mourners after day of carnage

Myanmar security forces opened fire yesterday at people gathered for the funeral of one of the 114 people killed the previous day, the bloodiest day of protests since the military coup on February 1, witnesses said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the firing on the funeral in the town of Bago, near the commercial capital Yangon, but protesters returned to the streets to press their demands for a return to democracy.

"While we are singing the revolution song for him, security forces just arrived and shot at us," said a woman called Aye, who was at the service for Thae Maung Maung, a 20-year-old student who was shot on Saturday. "People, including us, run away as they opened fire."

Two people were killed in firing in separate incidents elsewhere, witnesses and news reports said. One person was killed when troops opened fire overnight on a group of protesters near the capital Naypyidaw.

So far last night there were no reports of large-scale protests in Yangon or in the country's second city, Mandalay, which bore the brunt of the casualties on Saturday, Myanmar's Armed Forces Day. Funerals were held in many places.

At least six children between the ages of 10 and 16 were among those killed on Saturday.

The bloodshed drew renewed Western condemnation. The United Nations special rapporteur for Myanmar said the army was carrying out "mass murder" and called on the world to isolate the junta and halt its access to weapons.

Foreign criticism and sanctions imposed by some Western nations have failed so far to sway the military leaders as have almost daily protests around the country since the junta took power and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The number of killings since the coup is now more than 420, according to multiple counts.

Saturday also brought some of the heaviest fighting since the coup between the army and the ethnic armed groups that control swathes of the country.

Military jets killed at least three people in a raid on a village controlled by an armed group from the Karen minority, a civil society group said, after the Karen National Union faction earlier said it had overrun an army post near the Thai border, killing 10 people. The air strikes sent villagers fleeing into the jungle.

Senior general Min Aung Hlaing, the junta leader, said during a parade to mark Armed Forces Day that the military would protect the people and strive for democracy.

Countries including the United States, Britain and the European Union strongly condemned the violence.

UN special rapporteur Tom Andrews said it is time for the world to take action - if not through the UN Security Council then through an international emergency summit. He said the junta should be cut off from funding, such as oil and gas revenues, and from access to weapons.

"Words of condemnation or concern are frankly ringing hollow to the people of Myanmar while the military junta commits mass murder against them," he said.

Defense chiefs from a dozen countries said in a statement that a professional military must follow international standards for conduct "and is responsible for protecting - not harming - the people it serves."