First, the junta stole Myanmar’s elected leaders from the people. Now, doctors say, the generals have taken the oxygen that some citizens need to breathe.

As the Delta variant of the coronavirus rampages through Myanmar, the military, which seized power in a February coup, has ordered that lifesaving oxygen be denied to private clinics, according to medical workers. The clinics are staffed largely by doctors who oppose the army’s takeover and refuse to work in state hospitals. Basic medical care for Covid patients has been turned into an illegal act, said Dr. Min Han, a doctor at a private clinic.

The military has also prevented people from buying supplies from oxygen producers, whom it accuses of price-gouging, forcing desperate family members to defy the army in order to save sick relatives. And it has stopped charities from giving oxygen to people who need it, witnesses and charity workers said.

This week, soldiers in the city of Yangon went so far as to fire into a crowd of people lined up to buy oxygen tanks, witnesses said.

Doctors accuse the military of trying to ensure that the scarce supply of oxygen is funneled to military hospitals, which cater to army families.

Denying oxygen to private clinics and citizens has prematurely ended hundreds of lives, medical workers say, adding a cruel political dimension to an escalating health crisis. Thousands more are at imminent risk of dying, they say. And with the junta having apparently reserved much of the vaccine supply for its loyal ranks, there is little hope that Myanmar’s Covid outbreak, by far its worst yet, will end anytime soon.

“An explosion of Covid cases, including the Delta variant, the collapse of Myanmar’s health care system, and the deep mistrust of the people of Myanmar of anything connected to the military junta are a perfect storm of factors that could cause a significant loss of life in Myanmar without emergency assistance by the international community,” Tom Andrews, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said on Wednesday.

READ MORE: https://aseanews.net/2021/07/16/headline-rangon-myanmar-myanmar-army-hoards-oxygen-doctors-say/

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