‘I’m somewhere safe’: Journalists hiding from Myanmar’s military

More than 6,000 people have been arrested since the coup, and journalists – both local and foreign – are one of many groups being targeted.

Three months ago, I was forced to leave Myanmar, the place I had called home for almost a decade. After a military coup on February 1, a lethal crackdown on protests and widespread arrests had made it impossible to safely continue working as a journalist there. I drove to the airport in the early morning. The streets were quiet, but signs of the chaos that had taken place hours earlier were everywhere. Brick dust stained the streets red. Wire, concrete blocks and large orange rubbish bins were scattered across the roads – leftovers from the makeshift barricades protesters used in a hopeless attempt to protect themselves from the onslaught of security forces and their bullets. The walls and overpasses were littered with graffiti- three-finger salutes and profanities condemned the coup and the military leaders.