Myanmar's detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday, after years of questions over the health and well-being of the 81-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Suu Kyi met with Arnaud de Baecque, Resident Representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to Myanmar in the capital Naypyitaw, government spokeswoman Khine Khine Soe said in a message via Telegram.
In a statement, the ICRC confirmed a delegate had met with Suu Kyi, without naming the official.
"The visit was carried out 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," it said, using an honorific for the veteran politician.
Suu Kyi has been in detention since February 2021 when an elected civilian government led by her was ousted by Myanmar's military in a dawn coup, plunging the impoverished Southeast Asian nation into turmoil.
Since then, Suu Kyi's exact whereabouts and health conditions have been difficult to determine, with no foreign leader or envoy having publicly met her.
Photographs provided by the government spokeswoman showed Suu Kyi, dressed in traditional Burmese attire, meeting de Baecque in a sparsely furnished, wood-panelled room with two chairs and a desk.
Another photograph offered a rare glimpse inside what appeared to be her residence, showing Suu Kyi cutting a birthday cake inscribed with her name.
A fourth close-up showed the cake with the words “Happy Birthday Aunty Suu 29.6.2026”.
Reuters could not independently verify the location or the date when the pictures were taken, and found no earlier version of the images posted online before Monday.
Suu Kyi's son said on Monday that a visit by a delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross was the first positive development concerning her in more than five years.
"This may be a first step, but it must not be the last," Kim Aris said in a statement, adding he has not yet received independent confirmation of his mother's condition or wellbeing.
Suu Kyi is serving a 27-year sentence after being convicted of multiple offences on charges her allies say were politically motivated.
Authorities said in late April, after a military-engineered election that allowed former junta leader Min Aung Hlaing to become Myanmar's president, that she had been moved to house arrest.
Her sentence was also commuted by one-sixth as part of an amnesty for thousands of prisoners that also saw the release of her ally, former President Win Myint.
The new military-backed administration has so far been reluctant to provide access to Suu Kyi, including a May request by the Philippines to allow a special envoy of the ASEAN bloc to meet her.
Myanmar's junta said last December that Suu Kyi was in good health, after her son told Reuters he had received little information about his mother's condition and had not heard from her in years, fearing she could die without him knowing.
BMW is recalling more than 720,000 vehicles in the U.S. over a fire risk, warning owners to park outside and away from buildings until repairs are ...
Tajikistan has urged the international community to increase funding to protect shrinking glaciers and help mountain communities adapt to climate c...
A new study in mice suggests the brain’s protective barrier does more than block harmful substances. It also delivers essential proteins from...
European leaders gathered in Dublin on Thursday, 12 November, for the ninth European Political Community (EPC) summit, with security, defence and energy high on the agenda. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held talks focused on peace, trade and regional cooperation.
Iran will not let a single particle of its enriched nuclear material leave the country, and any new U.S. attack would be met with strikes on distant American bases, Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei has said.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang is stepping down amid reports linking him to a woman suspected by U.S. authorities of spying for China, throwing the future of the $4 trillion chipmaker into uncertainty.
Kazakhstan’s security service has arrested Nurlan Zhakupov, CEO of Samruk-Kazyna, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, on suspicion of corruption. Yelzhas Otynshiyev, Chairman of KTZ, Kazakhstan’s national railway firm has also been detained.
Eight people have been killed and at least 17 injured after an apartment building collapsed into a neighbouring construction site in Brooklyn, New York, as rescuers continued searching the rubble for possible survivors.
BMW is recalling more than 720,000 vehicles in the U.S. over a fire risk, warning owners to park outside and away from buildings until repairs are completed. The recall follows 10 reported fires involving cars previously repaired for the same fault.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says 3.7 million children in Afghanistan are suffering from acute malnutrition, as worsening drought and funding shortages threaten to deepen the crisis amid the COP31 climate summit in Türkiye.
A consortium of Türkiye’s Limak and Qatar’s HBK Contracting has won an international tender to build and operate a new airport terminal in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, under a 23-year public-private partnership, with the project potentially costing up to $300 million.
Spain’s parliament has approved a government package aimed at easing the country’s housing crisis, a day after workers staged the first general strike in 14 years over soaring housing costs.
Here's your AnewZ Technology Daily Brief for the 13th of November. This week, a Microsoft outage hit Australian agencies, Google restricted mapping data in South Korea, a lawsuit targeted advanced AI development, and Nvidia faced a leadership crisis after Jensen Huang's resignation.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment