Myanmar Releases Rare Photographs of Aung San Suu Kyi Meeting a Red Cross Official

Myanmar’s military-backed government said on Monday that the detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi had met a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Naypyitaw, releasing four photographs of a woman who has been held out of public view for more than five years.

The Nobel laureate, now 81, has been in detention since the army seized power from her elected government in February 2021. Her exact whereabouts and her health have been the subject of sustained international questioning ever since.

What the government released

A government spokeswoman, Khine Khine Soe, said via Telegram that Aung San Suu Kyi had met Arnaud de Baecque, the ICRC’s resident representative to Myanmar, in the capital on Monday morning.

Two of the four photographs show her in traditional Burmese dress, standing unaided and shaking hands with de Baecque, then seated with him in a sparsely furnished wood-panelled room containing two chairs and a desk. A third appears to show her cutting a cake, with a clothes rack and storage boxes behind her. The fourth is a close-up of the cake, inscribed for her birthday in June.

Reuters reported it could not independently verify where the meeting took place or when the photographs were taken. No earlier version of the images had appeared publicly.

What the ICRC said

The ICRC confirmed that one of its delegates had met her, without naming the official, and said the visit followed its standards and procedures for visiting people deprived of liberty. It said such visits give detainees the opportunity to exchange news with their families.

Her family is not satisfied

Kim Aris, her younger son, told NPR the photographs gave him a reason to hope for the first time since the coup, and described them as deeply emotional. He also said the ICRC had not briefed him on his mother’s health or on the meeting itself.

Nay Phone Latt, a spokesperson for the opposition National Unity Government, said the meeting should not be read as a genuine move on human rights or democracy. Rights groups have pressed similar arguments elsewhere in the region, including over the detention of a journalist in Zambia.

The last official image of Aung San Suu Kyi before Monday was released in April, when the military said she had been moved from prison to house arrest and her sentence reduced under an amnesty. She is serving a 27-year sentence following convictions her supporters say were politically motivated.

The coup leader Min Aung Hlaing was installed as civilian president in April, following elections held under heavy restriction. The civil war that began after the 2021 takeover has killed more than 100,000 people on all sides.