By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's junta arrested more people on Wednesday hours after the departure of a U.N. envoy who came to the country to try to end a ruthless crackdown on protests which sparked international outrage.
At least eight truckloads of prisoners were hauled out of downtown Yangon, the former Burma's biggest city and center of last week's monk-led protests against decades of military rule and deepening economic hardship, witnesses said.
In one house near the Shwedagon Pagoda, the holiest shrine in the devoutly Buddhist country and starting point for the rallies, only a 13-year-old girl remained. Her parents had been taken, she said.
"They warned us not to run away as they might be back," she said after people from rows of shop houses were ordered onto the street in the middle of the night and many taken away.
The crackdown continued despite some hopes of progress by U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari on his mission to persuade junta chief Than Shwe to relax his iron grip and open talks with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he met twice.
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