Family mourns seven-year-old girl shot in Myanmar

Wrapped in white burial shrouds, a tiny body is making its final journey.

Eight men carefully carry seven-year-old Khin Myo Chit to her waiting family.

Devastated, they kneel at her side, trying to understand how she can be dead. Why did Myanmar’s junta forces shoot her?

“They came into the house, they broke the doors and they were shooting inside,” said her father, U Maung Ko Hashin Bai.

“The child was really scared and she was shouting and they were saying ‘this not is scary’ and then they started shooting again.

“They were beating up her brother. Then they asked her as she was running towards me ‘are you the one who is scared?’- and then they shot her.”

Khin Myo Chit is the youngest person to be killed by security forces since the coup.

She was at her home in Mandalay on Tuesday when her family says men raided the house and began threatening them.

Speaking to Sky News, her father says a group came upstairs and began attacking members of the family.

Khin Myo Chit was terrified.

“They asked ‘is there anyone else (in the house)?’ and fired the gunshot while saying ‘don’t lie to us, old man,'” he said.

“They were first shooting from outside the house, then they came upstairs and they were kicking us and took two phones…. After she (Khin Myo Chit) got shot they brought her to me and I was carrying her and running in the street. She died on the way, she didn’t even reach the clinic.”

Photos show Khin Myo Chit, the youngest of eight children, was shot in the stomach.

At her funeral, friends and family say prayers for her.

The seven-year-old should be in primary school but instead, today, her father carries her body to her grave.

“I’m so sad, I can’t feel it anymore,” he says, crying.

As he buries his little girl, U Maung Ko Hashin Bai’s son is still missing.

He says he was beaten up and taken by the junta forces to an unknown location.

On the day Khin Myo Chit was shot, the military blamed demonstrators for the bloodshed so far, accusing them of arson and violence and claiming it would use the least force possible to control the situation.

Spokesman Zaw Min Tun expressed sadness at the death toll which he put at 164 protestors.

Despite widespread international condemnation the military has been increasing the force used against civilians, regularly using live rounds against them.

According to Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) more than 270 people have been killed since the military took power in February.

Rights group Save the Children says at least 20 of the dead are believed to be children – all young lives lost to an illegal coup.

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