Death and arrest claims in Burma

Updated 18.54 Tue Oct 02 2007

Keywords: junta, Myanmar, Burma

Burma's monks, who marched in their thousands last week in defiance of their military leaders, are now nowhere to be seen.

Their fate is unknown. State media says ten people were killed, including a Japanese video journalist shot at point-blank range.

He is expected to have a second meeting with 62-year-old Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest

Western governments have offered no toll of their own, but say it is likely to be far higher than numbers reported by a military regime - whch claims foreign radio stations are broadcasting "a skyful of lies".

Some suggest up to 200 are dead across the country, while others claim up to 200 are dead in Rangoon alone. There are also reports of up to 100 dead in a single incident outside a school.

A British newspaper report claimed: "Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle."

A human rights expert said: "I don't think even the generals have any idea what the real death toll is at the moment."

Hundreds of monks believed by the junta to have co-ordinated the biggest protests have disappeared.

The monks themselves say six of their number in Rangoon died in clashes with soldiers and police trying to break up their processions through the city, or in a series of midnight raids on rebellious monasteries.

Outrage among Myanmar's 56 million people at the mistreatment of the deeply revered Buddhist clergy is being stoked by photos doing the rounds of the rotting body of a maroon-robed young man with a shaven head lying in a pool of water.

It looks authentic but it is impossible to know when or where the picture was taken.

It is also impossible to substantiate reports of hundreds of monks held at a technical college near the infamous Insein prison. One version claims 40 monks were beaten to death and their bodies burned.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) (AAPPB), a Thailand-based group of former detainees dedicated to cataloguing those behind bars, says "over 1,000" monks were arrested on September 26 and 27 across the country.