Myanmar’s Suu Kyi sounded ‘fairly healthy’, son says after first call in years

Myanmar’s Suu Kyi sounded ‘fairly healthy’, son says after first call in years YANGON, Myanmar: The son of Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi told AFP she sounded “fairly healthy” after speaking to the detained ex-democratic leader on Thursday for the first time in more than five years. Suu Kyi, 81, is under house arrest in the capital, Naypyidaw, according to Myanmar authorities, where she has been sequestered since being unseated in a 2021 military coup. “She was sounding fairly healthy,” her son, Kim Aris, told AFP after the telephone conversation, which he said was the first time he had spoken to his mother in more than five years. “She could say she was in good health, but being 81, things aren’t getting any better,” said Aris, who lives in the United Kingdom. News of the conversation was the second rare update on Suu Kyi this week, after Myanmar authorities on Monday published pictures of her receiving a package sent by Britain’s King Charles III. Analysts say Myanmar’s rulers are increasingly advertising Suu Kyi’s wellbeing and her contacts with the outside world, as they bid to shake off their post-coup pariah status abroad. “Essentially we just discussed family matters,” Aris said, adding: “We knew the phone call would be recorded, so we didn’t talk about anything sensitive.” Myanmar’s presidential spokeswoman released photographs of Suu Kyi and Aris speaking into telephones, the detained Nobel Peace Prize laureate sitting under a calendar marked with Thursday’s date. A statement said the pair had a “consular telephone conversation” for 20 minutes starting at 2:30 p.m. (0800 GMT), and that Aris had taken the call from Myanmar’s embassy in London. “She was most concerned about my health and the rest of the family: that was her first question, if I was well,” Aris told AFP. Myanmar’s military held Suu Kyi in almost total seclusion for five years following the February 2021 coup, which ended a tentative…