The son of former Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Friday that his mother is suffering from health problems and needs urgent medical attention, appealing for her release from military custody.
Kim Aris told Reuters that the 80-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate had asked to see a cardiologist about a month ago, but that he wasn’t able to determine if that request had been granted.
“I am extremely worried,” he said, according to Reuters. “There is no way of verifying if she is even alive.”
Aris said that his mother also suffered from bone and gum issues, and that she was likely injured in a March earthquake that killed more than 3,700 people.
Myanmar’s government has not responded to requests for comment, Reuters reports.
Suu Kyi has been in military custody since the February 2021 coup that dissolved Myanmar’s democratically elected parliament and installed a government headed by General Min Aung Hlaing. She was convicted of 19 charges, including corruption, and sentenced to 33 years in prison. Her sentence was later reduced to 27 years.
Since then, her location has been unclear. Last year, a source close to Suu Kyi’s legal team told RFA that she was in solitary confinement in Naypyidaw Prison, in the capital. At the time, members of her legal team hadn’t seen her for more than a year. Aris told RFA last year that he received a letter from his mother, the first since 2022.
The daughter of Burmese independence leader Aung San, who was assassinated when she was two years old, Suu Kyi lived abroad until she returned to Myanmar in 1988. She was detained by the military and held under house arrest for 15 years, from 1989 to 2010.
Includes reporting from Reuters.
