Thinzar Shunlei Yi was at home in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, on Monday morning when she realized she could no longer contact her friends. While her wired internet connection was working, her cellular network was dead.

“I had received a lot of calls in the early morning, but when I woke up, I tried to call them back and I couldn’t,” said Yi, an advocacy coordinator at the Action Committee for Democracy Development, a coalition of community-based rights groups. “I checked and there was no service at all, it had been cut off.”

Yi soon understood that Myanmar’s powerful military had taken control of the country overnight. “I was worried about friends, colleagues, leaders, politicians and activists,” she said. “Anything can happen at that time.”

On February 1, three months after Myanmar’s ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) won the country’s general election, the army seized power in a bloodless coup and declared a year-long state of emergency. Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi and prominent members of the NLD were placed under house arrest. Power now rests with military chief Min Aung Hlaing.