Burma
Myanmar Vice President Henry Van Thio, center, in 2020. / AFP
Henry Van Thio, who has served continuously as second vice-president under the National League for Democracy government and now the junta, was admitted to Naypyitaw General Hospital on Tuesday with a serious head injury, according to hospital sources.
He purportedly suffered the injury in a fall at his residence in the administrative capital.
“We heard he fell downstairs and hit his head, which was bleeding. He is still in the intensive care unit, dizzy and vomiting. I saw him wearing a neck collar. And there are many police in the hospital,” a hospital source told The Irrawaddy.
Henry Van Thio was due to join a meeting of the National Defense and Security Council (NDSC) scheduled for Tuesday as two years of emergency rule following the Feb. 1 coup in 2021 expired. The regime announced he was absent on leave due to health reasons.
Though the military arrested most other NLD government leaders following the coup, it spared Henry Van Thio along with first vice president Myint Swe, who serves as the regime’s acting president. The regime continues to recognize Henry Van Thio as a vice president, but he seems to be under some form of house arrest and has not been seen since the putsch.
Both men remain members of the NDSC.
Henry Van Thio was also absent from two previous NDSC meetings held on the eve of emergency rule expiring, on Jan. 31 and July 31 last year. The regime extended emergency rule for six months both times. On both occasions, he cited health problems as an excuse for missing the meetings.
However, according to doctors at Naypyitaw General hospital, he has no serious medical conditions except for a stomach problem.
An ethnic Chin Christian, Henry Van Thio served as a major in the Myanmar military.
He was elected as an NLD member of Parliament in the 2015 general election before being appointed second vice-president.
