U Awbata said he struggles to shake memories of Myanmar soldiers opening fire on fellow monks during street protests last September, stomping on their heads and pummeling them with batons.

“It doesn’t matter how many tears I shed,” U Awbata said at the three-day conference in Indonesia. “I cannot erase these images from my mind.”

U Awbata is one of several monks who fled Myanmar after the crackdown and have shared tales of alleged torture and other brutality during last September’s uprising.

The protests were initiated by veteran pro-democracy activists to oppose a state-imposed fuel price hike and reflected long-standing discontent with the repressive military regime. Buddhist monks later joined the protests, which escalated into the biggest anti-government rallies in two decades.

The United Nations estimated at least 31 people were killed and thousands more detained in the military crackdown that followed.

The United States imposed financial sanctions against the country’s military rulers, freezing their assets in U.S. banks and barring American citizens from doing business with the junta.

U Awbata fled across the border to Thailand after witnessing the attack at the famed Shwedagon pagoda and then headed to Sri Lanka, where he continues to support the struggle to bring change to his homeland.

It is not clear how many died in the Shwedagon pagoda attack. U Awbata said he saw three monks killed as they were chanting prayers of love.

“When they fell down, the soldiers used their boots and stamped on the heads of the wounded monks and beat them with batons,” he said, fighting back emotion.

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