Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi speaks to son for first time in over five years

BANGKOK — The son of Myanmar’s detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Thursday that he had spoken with his mother for the first time in more than five years while she remains under house arrest.

Kim Aris, who for years had only received sporadic, secondhand updates about his 81-year-old mother, said he had spoken directly with Suu Kyi.

“Hearing her voice again means more to me than words can express,” Aris said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Myanmar’s military-backed president said on social media that Aris had spoken with Suu Kyi by telephone through Myanmar’s embassy in London, sharing separate photographs of the pair.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been detained since February 2021, when Myanmar’s military ousted her elected government and arrested civilian leaders in early morning raids.

The coup set off nationwide protests that evolved into an armed resistance movement, plunging the impoverished Southeast Asian nation into a civil war that has killed about 100,000 people and displaced millions.

Suu Kyi was moved to house arrest in April following a military-engineered election that installed coup leader Min Aung Hlaing as president.

She is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence on charges ranging…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business