Protesters marked the two-year anniversary of Myanmar’s military coup with a “silent strike” in major cities and rallies overseas on Wednesday, as exiled civilian leaders vowed to end what they called the army’s “illegal power grab”. 

The Southeast Asian country’s top generals led a putsch on February 2021 after five years of tense power-sharing under a quasi-civilian political system created by the military. The overthrow of the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi derailed a decade of reform, international engagement and economic growth, while leaving a trail of upended lives in its wake. Myanmar has been in chaos since the coup, with a resistance movement fighting the military on multiple fronts after a bloody crackdown on opponents that saw Western sanctions re-imposed.