With more than 1,400 civilians dead, thousands displaced and an economy on the brink of collapse, Myanmar is in crisis

• Read more in our Reporting Myanmar series

On 1 February 2021, Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup in the dead of night, hours before the newly elected parliament was due to convene for the first time. The military alleged voter fraud in the November 2020 election, when its proxy party was trounced by the National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, which won a landslide re-election victory.

A few days after the coup, mass protests erupted in Yangon and across the country. While there were some isolated incidents of violence, security forces largely allowed peaceful demonstrations to take place throughout the month of February. But towards the end of the month, the junta deployed increasingly violent tactics, from water cannon, beatings and rubber bullets to live ammunition.

Shops abandoned as public defies military threats and stays at home a year after ousting of government

Streets were deserted and shops abandoned across many of Myanmar’s towns and cities on Monday, as the public defied threats by the military junta and stayed at home in a “silent strike” on the first anniversary of the country’s coup.

Images posted on social media showed usually congested roads with no traffic and stores shuttered. In a photograph shared by Khit Thit Media, the usually busy Sule Pagoda road in downtown Yangon was completely empty. In Mandalay, the second largest city, a normally bustling market had virtually no customers.