Suu Kyi party says Myanmar junta depriving her of medical care

Myanmar's junta is endangering the life of jailed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, her political party has said, accusing the generals of depriving her of medical care and food during her incarceration.

Suu Kyi has been detained since the military seized power in February 2021, ending a 10-year democratic experiment and plunging the Southeast Asian into bloody turmoil.

In recent days local media have reported the deposed leader, 78, was suffering dizzy spells, vomiting and unable to eat because of a tooth infection.

"We are particularly concerned that she is not receiving adequate medical care and they are not providing healthy food nor accommodation sufficiently with the intention to risk her life," the National League for Democracy said on Thursday.

"If Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's health is not only impaired but her life also is endangered, the military junta is solely responsible," the statement said, using a Burmese honorific.

Separately, the younger son of Suu Kyi also said he was increasingly worried about his imprisoned 78-year-old mother’s health and about Myanmar's violent political crisis.

“I’d just really like to have some form of contact with her so that I know that she’s OK, because at the moment she has no access to her legal counsel,” Kim Aris said on Wednesday in a video interview with The Associated Press news agency from his home in London.

“She has no access to her personal doctors. She’s not allowed any visitors, as far as I’m aware. She’s not even allowed to mingle with the other prisoners, which means she’s basically under a form of solitary confinement.”

Suu Kyi has been prosecuted and convicted on more than a dozen charges for offences her supporters say were concocted to keep her out of politics. She is serving a prison term of 27 years.

The military takeover triggered massive public resistance that was brutally suppressed, triggering a bloody civil war that has killed thousands of people.

He has tried reaching out to Myanmar’s military government, including its embassy in London, “but I don’t get any response from them. They wouldn’t even answer the door to me.”

It’s not the first time Suu Kyi has faced confinement. She spent nearly 15 years under house arrest under a previous military government starting in 1989, a year after co-founding her National League for Democracy party. But almost all of that time was at her family home in Yangon, the country’s biggest city, and she was not completely isolated.