More than 5,600 prisoners in Myanmar will be released by the military junta which seized power earlier this year.
Videos and pictures from the country showed tearful reunions as those who had been detained were reunited with their loved ones.
An announcement on state television said the move was part of an amnesty for those who protested against the coup earlier this year, in which the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi was deposed.
Image: Crowds waiting for people to be released. Pic: AP
Footage from Insein Prison, Yangon – formerly known as Rangoon – showed the tearful scenes.
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Image: Aung San Suu Kyi is still in prison
Bus-loads of people were taken outside the gates of the compound to waiting crowds, after the release was announced by state television.
It added that 1,316 convicts were freed and charges against 4,320 people were suspended.
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Image: Commander-in-chief of Myanmar’s armed forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says that at least 9,043 people have been arrested since the coup, and 7,355 remained in detention when the amnesty was announced.
Ms Suu Kyi is still being held in detention.
Image: The outside of Insein prison in Yangon. Pic: AP
After her government was toppled, there were extensive demonstrations in Myanmaragainst the new regime.
Estimates place the death toll in the wake of the takeover at around 1,000 – a figure the junta says is exaggerated.
ASEAN recently snubbed the junta by inviting a non-political representative from the country to the upcoming summit of the organisation, as opposed to a member of the government.
Analysis by Siobhan Robbins, south east Asia correspondent
Desperately waiting after months without news, the raw emotion on display shows you what today’s prisoner releases mean to families finally able to hug their loved ones.
Some simply disappeared without a word as relatives hunted for scraps of information to confirm if they were dead or alive.
While people across Myanmar celebrated the freedom of their fellow citizens, on social media many rejected any suggestion that they should be thankful to the military for its mercy.
Afterall, they argued, these peaceful protestors wouldn’t be in jail if the junta hadn’t seized power in February.
While this isn’t the first prisoner release since the coup, this does appear to be the largest amnesty for those directly involved in demonstrations against the military government.
The timing isn’t a coincidence. It comes just days after the junta leader was excluded from attending a summit by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The unprecedented rebuke follows the ASEAN special envoy cancelling a much delayed trip to the country after he was denied access to ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi and others as he had requested.
This amnesty is a gesture by the junta to its neighbours paying lip service to a request to release all political prisoners at a time when it has done little to fulfil all of the five demands agreed by ASEAN in April.
For opponents this is just empty political power play.
There’s no sign high value prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi are about to be freed and in recent weeks armed conflict has been escalating.
Instead, today’s announcement was nothing more than “a form of distraction for foreign governments” according to monitoring group, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).
In a country used to decades of military rule, political parlour tricks no longer work.
ASEAN laid out a five-point roadmap for Myanmar to follow, but made the decision to shun the current administration after they failed to commit to the plan.
In response, Min Aung Hlaing, who led the coup in February, reiterated the junta’s own five-stage plan to restore democracy.
The lawyer of a high-profile Gazan doctor detained by Israel since last December has spoken of her shock over his condition after being allowed a rare visit to see him in jail.
Ghaid Qassem has told Sky News that Dr Hussam Abu Safiya – the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza – survives on very little food, including two spoonfuls of rice a day and has lost a third of his body weight. She said he has been subjected to severe beatings.
“As a young woman, seeing an older man – a respected doctor like Hussam Abu Safiya – broken in front of me, degraded, surrounded by prison guards, in the worst possible condition, how am I supposed to feel?” she said.
“The conditions of his detention are extremely harsh, inhumane, with continuous assaults.
“This is the sixth time he has been brutally attacked.
“The most recent incident was on 24 June 24, which coincided with the end of Israel‘s war with Iran and the strike on Soroka Hospital in Beersheba [Israel].
“It seems the prison authorities decided to take revenge. They raided Abu Safiya’s cell and began assaulting him.
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“He was beaten, sustaining bruises on his head, neck, and back. Afterwards, he requested medical treatment because he felt abnormal heartbeats, but his request was denied.”
Image: Dr Hussam Abu Safiya (centre) with his colleagues. Pic: Dr Eid Sabbah, Kamal Adwan Hospital
Image: Ghaid Qassem
It is thought that since his detention Dr Abu Safiya has been held at a number of Israeli jails.
His lawyer said she was allowed access to meet with him at Ofer prison, near Jerusalem.
Ms Qassem said there was no proper healthcare or hygiene and it is claimed the paediatrician is being held in an underground cell.
“They can’t shower, their clothes aren’t replaced, not even underwear,” she said. “Scabies is rampant, skin diseases are widespread and the most basic medical attention is only given when they see you’re on the verge of death.”
Dr Abu Safiya was last seen in Gaza, wearing his white doctor’s coat as he walked through the rubble outside his hospital towards an Israeli tank in December 2024.
Image: This is believed to be one of the last sightings of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya before he was detained
Before then he had become a well-known voice and face of the Kamal Adwan hospital, sharing videos about the siege of the medical facility and explaining how staff were struggling to continue working under Israeli bombardment.
The hospital has since been forced to close down.
Oneg Ben Dror, from Physicians for Human Rights Israel, told Sky News they believe Dr Abu Safiya is one of more than a 100 medical professionals from Gaza currently being detained in Israeli jails.
Image: Oneg Ben Dror, from Physicians for Human Rights Israel
She said: “We know that more than 250 health care workers were arrested since the start of the war on Gaza.
“Part of them were released, and more than 100 are still detained. We have their names, and we managed to visit dozens of them while in detention.
“All those we met weren’t charged officially with any offence.
“We asked them about the interrogation and all of them said the questions they were asked weren’t about them or a specific offence.
“It was more information gathering about their workplace and people they knew and this is against international law arresting them while doing their job and holding them for intelligence gathering and as bargaining chips for a potential deal.”
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27:55
Doctors on the frontline
A spokesperson for the Israel Prison Service (IPS) said: “All prisoners are detained according to the law. All basic rights required are fully applied by professionally trained prison guards.
“We are not aware of the claims you described, and as far as we know, no such events have occurred under IPS responsibility.
“Nonetheless, prisoners and detainees have the right to file a complaint that will be fully examined and addressed by official authorities.”
Dr Abu Safiya’s colleague, Dr Eid Sabbah, head of the nursing department at Kamal Adwan Hospital, told Sky News more than 30 medical staff from the hospital have been killed during the conflict.
Image: Dr Hussam Abu Safiya and Dr Eid Sabbah, worked together in Gaza. Pic: Dr Eid Sabbah, Kamal Adwan Hospital
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He said: “We pray to God to give Dr Abu Safiya strength, to ease his suffering soon, and to see him free – just like the rest of our people, our patients, our wounded, and all the doctors who were detained from this hospital.
“He is in a very difficult situation. The news we are hearing is troubling and far from reassuring.
“He was the kind of doctor who took bold stands for his colleague. At the same time, he never abandoned his patients, even under extreme pressure.
“Despite calls urging him to evacuate the hospital for his own safety, he refused to leave. He stayed by his patients’ sides, fully committed to serving them – especially the children, the elderly, the women, and the injured.”
An aid worker in the central Gaza Strip has told Sky News the food situation in the enclave is “absolutely desperate” and “the worst it’s ever been”.
Her comments to Sky’s chief presenter Mark Austincome amid fresh international outcry over Israel’s restrictions on aid, as the UK has joined together with 24 other countries to say: “The war in Gaza must end now.”
Rachael Cummings, humanitarian director for Save The Children, is in Deir al Balah, a city in central Gaza where tens of thousands of people have sought refuge during repeated waves of mass displacement.
Image: Smoke rises during strikes amid the Israeli operation in Deir al Balah. Pic: Reuters
Ms Cummings’s comments came as the UK and 24 other nations issued a joint statement calling for a ceasefire.
The statement criticised aid distribution in Gaza, which is being managed by a US and Israel-backed organisation, Gaza Health Foundation.
“The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” it said.
The 25 countries also called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of hostages captured by Hamas during the 7 October 2023 attacks.
Lammy promises £40m for Gaza aid
Foreign Secretary David Lammy later promised £40m for humanitarian assistance in Gaza.
He told MPs: “We are leading diplomatic efforts to show that there must be a viable pathway to a Palestinian state involving the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, in the security and governance of the area.
“Hamas can have no role in the governance of Gaza, nor use it as a launchpad for terrorism.”
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Lammy: ‘There must be a viable pathway to a Palestinian state’
Addressing the foreign secretaries’ joint written statement, charity worker Liz Allcock – who works for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) in Gaza – told Sky News: “While we welcome this, there have been statements in the past 21 months and nothing has changed.
“In fact, things have only got worse. And every time we think it can’t get worse, it does.”
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“Without a reversal of the siege, the lack of supplies, the constant bombardment, the forced displacement, the killing, the militarisation of aid, we are going to collapse as a humanitarian response,” she said.
“And this would do a grave injustice to the 2.2 million people we’re trying to serve.
“An immediate and permanent ceasefire, and avenues for accountability in line with international law, is the minimum people here deserve.”
The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage.
More than 59,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
At least 19 people have died after a Bangladesh air force plane crashed into a college campus, the military said.
The aircraft crashed into the campus of Milestone School and College in Uttara, in the northern area of the capital Dhaka, where students were taking tests or attending regular classes.
The pilot was one of the people killed, and, according to the military, 164 were injured in the incident.
The Bangladeshmilitary’s public relations department added that the aircraft was an F-7 BGI, and had taken off at 1.06pm local time before crashing shortly after.
Video shows fire and smoke rising from the crash site, with hundreds looking on.
Image: Pics: Reuters
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.
Bengali-language daily newspaper Prothom Alo said that most of the injured were students with burn injuries.
Image: Pics: Reuters
Citing the duty officer at the fire service control room, Prothom Alo also reported that the plane had crashed on the roof of the college canteen.
Rafiqa Taha, a 16-year-old student at the school who was not present at the time of the crash, told the Associated Press that the school has around 2,000 students.
“I was terrified watching videos on TV,” she added. “My God! It’s my school.”