Burmese security forces launched a raid on Wednesday (March 10) in Rangoon against striking railway workers participating in the vast anti-junta civil disobedience movement, raising fears of further arrests.
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Military vehicles and several hundred police were deployed around the compound where railway staff reside at Ma Hlwa Gone station in the east of the economic capital, according to images posted on social media.
“We are united,”
chanted railroad workers in return.
"They block the doors (of the apartments) and destroy them to enter,"
said a family member of a railway worker, on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
“I managed to escape but I'm worried about the workers”
and their relatives who are still trapped, she continued.
According to her, some 800 railway workers are involved in the civil disobedience movement in this station.
Doctors, teachers, employees of electricity companies and railways, many officials have stopped working since the February 1 coup that overthrew the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
This movement is disrupting the fragile Burmese economy with empty ministerial offices, closed schools and hospitals, and banks unable to function.
The main unions have called for an intensification of the general strike from this week in an attempt to totally paralyze the country and increase pressure on the military.
The junta, for its part, ordered officials to return to work from March 8, failing which they would be sacked and face reprisals.
Read also: Women on the front line of the protests against the Burmese junta
Burma has been in turmoil since the putsch, with daily protests across the country.
Raids, mass arrests, use of lethal force: the junta seems more determined than ever to try to extinguish this largely peaceful wind of rebellion.
At least 60 civilians have been killed and nearly 2,000 people arrested since February 1, according to the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners.
The army, which justifies its passage in force by alleviating vast electoral frauds during the legislative elections of November won massively by the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, ensures not to be implied in the death of the demonstrators.
