A woman protester was fatally shot yesterday during a crackdown on a protest at a controversial copper mine in north-west Myanmar.

National League for Democracy MP Khin San Hlaing said that the confrontation at the Letpadaung copper mine project had occurred because police and Chinese workers had erected a fence on land that the villagers claimed as their own.

She said that a woman in her 50s had been fatally shot in the head, though it was not made clear whether she had been shot by police or mining company security personnel.