Jan 31 (Reuters) – Shwe Theingi was immediately drawn to Wutt Yee Aung when they met at the start of their second year at Myanmar’s Dagon University in 2019.
The 19-year-old zoologist stood out for her boyish clothes, short hair and friendly but outgoing personality, Shwe Theingi said. The two young women, who were active in the student union, quickly became friends.
Around the same time and in the same city, Khant Linn Naing was working at a printing house. He was also pursuing a degree in history at another university and was involved in a student union.
All three students were part of the first generation in decades to come of age in a quasi-democratic Myanmar, enjoying new freedoms in the commercial capital Yangon before a military coup on February 1, 2021.
And all three have been caught up in a brutal crackdown on the tens of thousands of young people who took to the streets in support of democracy five years ago.
Many of those protesters took up arms against the junta. Others fled or were detained in prison, where some of them died.
At least 74 political prisoners between the ages of 18 and 35 have died in custody since the coup, according to previously unreported data from the Political Prisoners’ Assistance Association, whose information on Myanmar is often cited by United Nations agencies.
The number was corroborated with the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network (PPNM), which monitors the country’s prison system. A total of 273 people accused of public incitement and insurrection after the coup died while incarcerated, according to PPNM.
Reuters interviewed three associates and relatives of the detained students and the two prison monitoring groups and reviewed letters sent by the inmates and correctional authorities. Together they provide the most complete account to date of the conditions experienced by Wutt Yee Aung and Khant Linn Naing and the circumstances of their deaths.
The news agency could not independently verify all the accounts, but they echo allegations made by UN investigators last year of “systematic torture, killing and other serious abuses during interrogations and in detention centers operated by Myanmar’s security forces”.
The junta’s intelligence ministry did not return multiple requests for comment on the allegations of mistreatment.
The military government’s foreign ministry last year denied UN reports of torture and abuse, without going into details. “These one-sided and baseless allegations are persistently advanced on the basis of such unverified data,” it said in October.
THE LOST GENERATION
Arrests, torture and recruitment, as well as displacement within and outside Myanmar, “disproportionately affected the younger generation,” the UN said in a report last year.
An estimated 300,000 to 500,000 young people have fled the country, which has a population of about 51 million, since the coup, according to the UN Development Programme.
When the 2021 crackdown began, Shwe Theingi left Yangon. Wutt Yee Aung remained, participating in the anti-junta resistance until she was arrested in September 2021.
After a junta court convicted her on charges that included insurgency and incitement, she was sentenced to seven years in Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison.
Through letters and occasional phone calls, she kept in touch with her family and Shwe Theingi.
“Mother, I hope you are well,” Wutt Yee Aung said in a letter from prison in February 2024. “I have run out of snacks and medicine, so please transfer 200,000 kyat.”
The handwritten plea for about $100 in official exchange rates also contained a list of medications, including some to treat nerve damage and asthma.
During interrogation in the two weeks after her arrest, Wutt Yee Aung suffered head injuries, according to Shwe Theingi and the Dagon University Students’ Union, who also said she had no health problems before her imprisonment.
Her health eventually deteriorated so badly that she was admitted to prison at least once in mid-2025, Shwe Theingi said.
In an undated letter addressed to Shwe Theingi, Wutt Yee Aung asked for about $150 for a medical test. “Please don’t tell mom about this,” she wrote, “I miss everyone.”
Wutt Yee Aung died in prison on 19 July 2025 at the age of 25. Authorities told her family the cause of death was a heart condition, Shwe Theingi said.
The student union disputed the junta’s version of her death in a statement.
“Due to political prisoners not being given adequate medical treatment, lack of medicine and restrictions on contact with her family, Ma Wutt Yee Aung died in prison at around 9.30pm on 19 July 2025,” it said, using an honorific for her name.
FATAL TRANSFER
Khant Linn Naing’s family learned of his arrest on television news.
The 19-year-old was picked up in December 2021 and charged with inciting people to commit crimes against the state and insurrection. He was held at Daik-U Prison, about 110 km from Yangon, and sentenced by a junta court to 15 years.
In July 2023, his family was rocked again, this time by a letter from correctional authorities, which said Khant Linn Naing had been shot and killed while trying to escape during a prison transfer.
The contents of the letter were described to Reuters by a family member, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Reuters also saw a letter sent in June 2023 by prison authorities to the family of another inmate at Daik-U, which said he was killed after “security personnel fired warning shots” when he tried to escape during a transfer.
A colonial-era rulebook, which a lawyer and a prison monitor said is still used by correctional authorities, allows officials to use weapons such as firearms against inmates trying to escape only when “no other means are available to prevent the prisoner’s escape,” according to a section of the manual reviewed by Reuters.
No death notification provided more information about the circumstances of the alleged escape attempts, and the junta’s intelligence ministry did not respond to requests for specific details.
Khant Linn Naing’s parents have not had access to his remains and, more than two years after receiving the notification, have not organized a funeral, the relative said.
“Because the letter was so vague, we don’t think he’s dead,” the person said.
PPNM spokesman Thaik Tun Oo said he found it implausible that Khant Linn Naing tried to escape because prisoners are usually detained and paired with police officials during a transfer.
He added that his organization was informed by prison sources that Khant Linn Naing was subjected to harsh interrogation shortly before the alleged transfer.
In the years after Wutt Yee Aung and Khant Linn Naing protested the junta, youth uprisings overturned politics and toppled governments in other parts of Asia, including Bangladesh and Nepal.
However, the Myanmar generals resisted. As they lost territory in their border territories, the junta fought back by introducing conscription and expanding air power. This month, it concluded three-phase elections that are likely to see a military-backed party take power.
“I wanted to become a news anchor. Wutt Yee wanted to do more volunteer work,” said Shwe Theingi. “Each of us had different dreams.”
(Reporting by Reuters staff, writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Katerina Ang)