Myanmar’s detained former leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi met with a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday, in what appeared to be her first public meeting with a foreign official in several years, and which comes after international concerns about her health.
A photograph released by the military-backed government showed Suu Kyi, 81, in traditional Burmese dress, smiling and shaking hands with the official, who the government named as the ICRC’s resident representative to Myanmar, in a sparse room with a wooden floor and walls.
The ICRC said in a statement that Suu Kyi met with one of their delegates on Monday “in accordance with the ICRC’s standards and procedures for visiting people deprived of liberty.”
“This included the opportunity to speak with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in private,” the ICRC said.
Suu Kyi, for decades the face of Myanmar’s struggle against military rule, has been detained by the military since 2021, when it ousted the civilian government she led in a coup. Since then, the military have kept her exact whereabouts and condition secret as a deadly civil war has engulfed much of the impoverished Southeast Asian nation. Tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced as pro-democracy groups and ethnic rebels battle the military across the country.
