yangon myanmar protesters in myanmar returned to the streets sunday to press their demands for a return to democracy just a day after security forces killed more than 100 people in the bloodiest day since last months military coupprotests were held in yangon and mandalay the countrys two biggest cities as well as elsewhere some of the demonstrations were again met with police forceat least 114 people were killed saturday as security forces cracked down on protests against the february 1 coup that ousted aung san suu kyis elected government according to the online news service myanmar now the reported fatalities included several children under 16 years oldsimilar tallies of the death toll were issued by other myanmar media and researchers far exceeding the previous highest death toll on march 14 the number of killings since the coup is now more than 420 according to multiple countsthe coup reversed years of progress toward democracy after five decades of military rule and has again made myanmar the focus of international scrutinythe saturday killings by police and soldiers took place throughout the country as myanmars military celebrated the annual armed forces day holiday with a parade in the countrys capital naypyitawthe bloodshed quickly drew international condemnation both from diplomatic missions within myanmar and from abroadun secretarygeneral antonio guterres said he was shocked by the killings of civilians including childrenthe continuing military crackdown is unacceptable and demands a firm unified resolute international response he wrote on twitterin the united states secretary of state antony blinken said in a tweet that his country was horrified by the bloodshed perpetrated by burmese security forces showing that the junta will sacrifice the lives of the people to serve the fewthe military chiefs of 12 nations issued a joint statement condemning the use of force against unarmed peoplea professional military follows international standards for conduct and is responsible for protecting not harming the people it serves it said we urge the myanmar armed forces to cease violence and work to restore respect and credibility with the people of myanmar that it has lost through its actionsthe statement was issued by the defence chiefs of australia canada germany greece italy japan denmark the netherlands new zealand south korea the united kingdom and the united statesthe human rights group amnesty international revived criticism that the international community was not doing enough to end the state violence in myanmarun security council member states continued refusal to meaningfully act against this neverending horror is contemptible said ming yu hah the organisations deputy regional director for campaignsthe security council has condemned the violence but not advocated concerted action against the junta such as a ban on selling it arms china and russia are both major arms suppliers to myanmars military as well as politically sympathetic and as members of the council would almost certainly veto any such movein recent days the junta has portrayed the demonstrators as the ones perpetrating violence for their sporadic use of molotov cocktails on