Ex-Myanmar police officers reveal how they were told to shoot protesters – and why they defected
In a safe house in Myanmar, resistance is growing.
Quietly, in the gloomy light, a group of men raise their hands in a three-finger salute.
Traditionally a sign of defiance and support for pro-democracy protesters, for these men it symbolises so much more.
Once police or soldiers, they now plan to fight the forces they used to serve.
Just talking to us is a huge risk; if caught the defectors could be killed.
So in hiding, faces and voices disguised for protection, they explain why they decided to defy the junta.
Sky News has hidden the former soldiers’ and police officers’ identities for their own safety
“We were told that we could shoot the protesters if they gathered in more than five. We could arrest them and shoot them,” Officer A, a former police officer says.
“We were ordered to shoot but we couldn’t do it.”
The allegation echoes the claims of both protesters and human rights groups after February’s military coup.
Myanmar’s security forces have been accused by Amnesty International of “premeditated” attacks on peaceful protesters – including “extrajudicial executions” and indiscriminately spraying bullets in urban areas.
While a shoot-to-kill policy has never been officially confirmed by the junta, the defectors claim they were encouraged to open fire.
“My friends said if they shot the protesters, they would get a promotion as a reward and be praised for being brave and following the junta’s order,” another former police officer, Officer B, tells Sky News.
“They were promoted from police second lieutenant to police lieutenant, from corporal to sergeant. As far as I know, those who shot the protesters got promoted.”
A former soldier in the group tells a similar story.
The defectors could be killed for talking to the media
According to him, challenging an order wasn’t an option.
“The soldiers and police are now abusing the people at the order of Min Aung Hlaing (Myanmar’s junta chief),” he says.
“‘Shoot. Just shoot. This is my order,’ this is how they order the troops. If we did not follow the order, we would be punished.”
As well as the shootings, the military is accused of other abuses: of power, of people, and of their duty to protect.
Some female protesters have publicly accused members of the security forces of physical and sexual violence following their arrests.
The soldier isn’t surprised.
He says he heard reports of sex assaults during his service, in particular during military operations to ethnic minority areas in Myanmar.
“People are calling soldiers ‘military dogs’ [and] also accusing them of rape. Let me tell you, yes, we have seen those scenes at the frontline. I wasn’t involved in it.
“The officers were calling the women here and there and abusing them. Rape as well. It’s happening,” he says,
At least 840 people have been killed since the coup, many shot by junta forces according to figures from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).
Some protesters have travelled to border areas in Myanmar for resistance training
We put the allegations made by the defectors to the junta, but on publication Sky News still hadn’t received a response.
The men say the command to use violence against civilians is the reason they fled and joined the protest movement.
Their choice means the institutions they swore an oath to are the enemy they must defeat and the decision to defect has come at great personal sacrifice.
They have lost their freedom. They cannot see their families. They cannot return to their hometowns or tell friends where they are.
They now live their lives in hiding and on the run, waiting in dark, cramped and basic accommodation fearing they may be discovered.
Yet still they remain defiant – determined to fight for the democracy lost when the military seized power.
Since the coup, some protesters have travelled to border areas in Myanmar for resistance training and now some of the defectors are planning to use their own skills to help them.
“Those [protesters] who are not familiar with the military training, they need to learn how to use the weapons, to fix them, and set them up.
“I want to teach them. I will join with those organisations that are in the revolution to fight the junta.
“I will fight those power-hungry thugs,” the soldier says.
“I will join this revolution until the end. I will give my life. I will kill them wherever I see them.”
So in secret they plan, they train, they get strong; preparing to strike back against the generals they followed for so long.
World
‘They’re terrified of the possible results’: US considers cutting funds to notorious Israeli army unit
The drive into the village of Jiljiliya is not what you expect on the West Bank. Imposing mansions line the route, with grand gates and lavish decorations.
That’s because this is where Palestinian Americans return to build their dream homes after years of hard work in the land of opportunity.
Like Omar Assad who came back after 45 years in Milwaukee. But for him, retirement was neither long nor happy. It was cut brutally short one freezing night in January 2022.
The body of Omar Assad at his funeral
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He was returning from a game of cards when he was stopped at a makeshift checkpoint set up by the notorious Israeli army unit, Netzah Yehuda.
The IDF says he did not cooperate so the 78-year-old was detained with force.
Mraweh Mahmoud was with him.
“They took us down from the car and pushed me by the head,” he told Sky News. “The soldier was standing there and put an M16 in my head and said now I’ll shoot you.”
Mr Assad was tied up, gagged and blindfolded, Mr Mahmoud said, and forced to lie next to him. When the soldiers eventually left Mr Mahmoud realised Mr Assad was dead.
“I took his jacket off his head, I checked there’s no pulse, I shouted Omar, Omar,” he said.
Mraweh Mahmoud demonstrates how a Netzah Yehuda soldier pointed a gun at his head
Palestinian doctors say Mr Assad died in freezing temperatures of a stress-induced heart attack. An Israeli military report condemned the soldiers’ “moral failure and poor decision-making”.
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Netzah Yehuda has a fearsome reputation
No link between death and soldiers’ errors, military prosecutors say
Netzah Yehuda’s battalion commander was reprimanded and two officers were dismissed but Israeli military prosecutors decided against pursuing criminal charges because they said there was no link between the errors made by soldiers and Mr Assad’s death.
But now the unit the soldiers came from is expected to be singled out by the US government and cut off from American funding, in the first-ever such move against any part of the Israeli military.
Reports claim the US State Department will apply the so-called Leahy Law against the unit, which prohibits US assistance to foreign military units guilty of gross human rights violations when their government fails to take sufficient action.
Netzah Yehuda mixes soldiering with religion
Why has Netzah Yehuda become infamous?
The Netzah Yehuda battalion was set up to help ultra-orthodox Jews serve in the army. It mixes religion and soldiering. But in its ranks are also elements of extremist settler groups.
It has become infamous, implicated in one case of alleged abuse of Palestinians after another, many of which its soldiers have filmed on their own phones. Its soldiers have been prosecuted for human rights violations and accused of unlawful killings, electrocution, torture and sexual assault.
Israel’s government has fought a rearguard action against the looming US action.
Netzah Yehuda has been linked to human rights abuses
Its prime minister called the prospect absurd and its defence minister Yoav Galant showed solidarity with the battalion’s soldiers this week saying “no one in the world can teach us about morals and values”.
But one organisation of ex-soldiers opposed to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories says the Israeli government knows this could be just the beginning of action against its military.
Ori Givati from the NGO Breaking the Silence
‘They’re terrified of the possible results’
Ori Givati from the NGO Breaking the Silence told Sky News: “They understand that this might open the Pandora’s box of what the occupation really is, and how it looks like to occupy millions with the military.
“And if that Pandora’s box will be opened and it is starting to open in recent months, I think they’re terrified of the possible results because they want to continue to occupy.”
Back in Jilijilya, Mr Assad’s family welcomes reports America will act against the soldiers they blame for his death but say that’s not enough – they want them brought to justice too.
Nazmia, Mr Assad’s widow, said: “God willing it will be good if they do this, but also punish them like what they did with him, arrest them and fire them from their positions.”
World
Israel-Hamas war: Hostage’s parents tell him ‘stay strong’ after video shows him alive but missing part of arm
The parents of an Israeli hostage have told him “we love you, stay strong, survive” after he appeared with part of his arm missing in a video released by Hamas.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin was kidnapped at the Nova musical festival when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October.
The video shows him with his lower left arm missing; witnesses said it was blown off when he helped throw grenades out of a shelter where people were hiding.
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He reportedly used his shirt as a tourniquet to stem the bleeding, but was captured.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin (middle) was one of over 200 people kidnapped. Pic: Reuters
Clearly under duress in the undated video, the 23-year-old criticises Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, saying they should be “ashamed” for not securing the hostages’ release.
He also claims Israeli bombings have killed “about 70 detainees like me” and that the rest are living in an “underground hell without water, food, or sun”.
Mr Goldberg-Polin, who wears a red shirt and sits against a plain white wall, finishes with an appeal to his parents, telling them “stay strong” and “I love you so much, and miss you so much”.
His parents responded to Wednesday’s video by filming their own emotional response.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Jon Polin says hearing his son for the first time in more than 200 days is “overwhelming”.
“We are relieved to see him alive but we are also concerned about his health and wellbeing as well as that of all the other hostages, and all of those suffering in this region,” he says.
Mr Polin calls for the countries involved in negotiations to “be brave, lean in, seize this moment and get a deal done to reunite all of us with our loved ones and end the suffering in this region”.
His mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, stares resolutely into the camera and tells him: “Hersh, if you can hear his, we heard your voice today for the first time in 201 days… I am telling you – we are telling you – we love you, stay strong, survive.”
Rachel Goldberg holding photos of her son a few weeks after the October attack. Pic: Reuters
Friends and family continue to raise awareness of his captivity. Pic: Reuters
The 23-year-old was born in California but moved to Jerusalem with his family when he was younger.
He was among about 250 Israelis and foreigners kidnapped in the initial Hamas attack, which also killed around 1,200 people.
Some hostages were freed in a deal last year, but more than 100 are still unaccounted for and there is huge pressure in Israel for the government to bring them home.
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Baby saved from womb of dying mother
Israel’s aim to wipe out Hamas has so far killed more than 34,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health authority.
Hundreds of thousands are also said to be on the brink of starvation and have been forced to flee the violence.
Fears are growing that a ground assault on the southern city of Rafah – where more than a million people are sheltering – is imminent after Mr Netanyahu said Israel was “moving ahead” with its plans.
Deep below Jerusalem, Israeli doctors are preparing for the worst.
Sky News has been given exclusive access to an underground hospital where they are expanding capacity in case the current conflict becomes much worse.
In a bunker below the Herzog Medical Centre, the number of beds has been increased to 350 – with 100 on the way.
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“Because it’s built to withstand both biological and chemical attacks,” Dr Yehezkel Caine told Sky News as we entered the complex, “we have an airlock which is built of two separate sets of blast doors”.
Dr Yehezkel Caine says there’s an unprecedented threat to Israel’s people
Beyond they have installed a whole new level of wards below the existing underground hospital, ripping out a logistics floor and installing more beds and equipment.
The bunkers would be activated should other hospitals closer to the front need evacuating.
They are planning for worst-case scenarios here like an all-out war with Hezbollah.
“The hospitals in the north will be overwhelmed with casualties and they themselves will come under fire, in which case they would have to evacuate their patients to the centre of the country, the same as we did in the first weeks of the war in the south,” said Dr Caine.
He and his staff know the 7 October attack last year by Hamas and Iran‘s missile and drone barrage earlier this month have changed everything for the people of Israel.
“For the civilian population since the war of independence we’ve never been in a situation where the threat to the civilian population has been as great,” he said.
Two sets of blast doors form an airlock against biological and chemical attacks
Above ground, the Herzog Medical Centre continues with its peacetime specialisms.
It has Israel’s largest ventilator unit, treating adults and children, but also excels in psycho-trauma treatment and geriatric rehabilitation.
Many of those suffering PTSD from the trauma in this conflict are treated here.
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Parents of hostage in Hamas video tell him ‘stay strong’
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If Jerusalem itself is attacked, the hospital can evacuate even the most vulnerable to the bunkers below in just a few hours.
The bunkers can be entirely sealed off for 96 hours in what’s called a Noah’s Ark procedure.
The Herzog drills its staff regularly. Preparing for a reality it hopes will never come. But events on the northern border are looking ominous.
Israel has launched one of its biggest bombardments yet of Lebanon’s Hezbollah after multiple shelling of northern Israeli communities.
The lower-level war continues with the ever-present danger of escalation into something much bigger.
If it comes, doctors in Jerusalem’s biggest underground hospital say they’ll be ready.
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