“We heard loud gunshots, and saw that a young kid’s head had exploded, and there was a river of blood on the street,” said Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng. “We need to value life. It made me feel so sad.”

By Kenny Stancil, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-9-2021

“I knelt down… begging them not to shoot and torture the children, but to shoot me and kill me instead,” Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng said of her attempt to dissuade police officers in Myitkyina, Myanmar from shooting people at a pro-democracy demonstration on March 8, 2021. (Photo: Twitter screengrab via Reuters)

Kneeling before a group of police officers in a northern Myanmar city on Monday, Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng courageously begged the forces of the country’s new military junta to refrain from shooting pro-democracy activists—a plea that was ultimately ignored by the officers who went on to kill at least two people and injure several others as the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations against last month’s coup continues.

“I knelt down… begging them not to shoot and torture the children, but to shoot me and kill me instead,” Tawng told AFP on Tuesday after a video of the incident went viral. Continue reading →