Wounded Myanmar protesters fear arrest in junta hospitals

YANGON: Protesters shot during rallies against Myanmar’s military regime are avoiding treatment for their wounds, fearing arrest if they visit junta-run hospitals and searching desperately for sympathetic doctors to operate on them in secret.

Security forces have fired on civilian protests with sniper rifles, machine guns and mortar rounds in the months since the February coup that ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi. More than 800 people have been killed and thousands of others wounded in a running crackdown on opposition to the military regime, according to rights groups.

Maung Win Myo -- his name and others have been changed for safety reasons -- used to scratch a meagre living as a trishaw driver, ferrying people around the bustling commercial capital of Yangon.