Regime sets sights on private hospitals in search for CDM health workers

By DMG 28 Dec 2021

DMG Newsroom
28 December 2021, Sittwe 

Some nurses who have joined the anti-regime Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) and were working at private hospitals in Myanmar say they have gone into hiding as security personnel are targeting them. 

A CDM nurse said that investigations were underway by regime security personnel at some private hospitals. 

“The military council’s security members are searching some private hospitals in Yangon and Mandalay because they were informed that some CDM nurses are working there. I haven’t heard reports of arrests. We are currently going into hiding,” the CDM nurse told DMG. 

Security forces have been investigating since the first week of November, but there has been an increase in intelligence in the last week of December, according to CDM nurses. 

“The military council’s search and arrest of the nurses is a deliberate threat. We are committed to joining the CDM until the fall of the current dictator,” the healthcare worker added. 

Junta soldiers sealed off the home of a second-year CDM nursing student in Nyaung Kone village, part of Yangon Region’s Hlegu Township, on November 24 for allegedly storing explosive devices. The CDM student and her family members went into hiding. 

On December 20, a midwife in Mandalay was arrested by junta personnel and subsequently released, but her uncle was also arrested and remains detained, according to a family member.

According to the National Unity Government (NUG) in exile, more than 100,000 healthcare workers have joined the CDM since Myanmar’s military staged a coup on February 1.  

In a December briefing paper, US-based Physicians for Human Rights said 284 health workers in Myanmar were arrested from February through November.  

“In November, at least 80 health workers were arrested or detained, more than in any month since the beginning of the coup,” the group said, attributing the uptick to mass arrest events. 

“Mass arrests took place during coordinated home raids and at health clinics. In most arrests, health workers have been accused of aiding injured PDF [People’s Defence Force] soldiers or being affiliated with the CDM,” the Physicians for Human Rights briefing added.