Myanmar's detained former leader, Oxford graduate, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has been seen in rare photos after mounting demands to the military to prove she is still alive.
This marks a rare encounter with the outside world for the detained Nobel laureate, who has been out of public sight since a military coup against her in 2021.
Photographs published alongside the statement show Suu Kyi shaking hands with Arnaud de Baecque, ICRC's representative to Myanmar, in a wood-panelled room.
Suu Kyi had been detained on February 1, 2021, when the army took control from her elected government.
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Aung San Suu Kyi studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at St Hugh's before marrying Tibet scholar Michael Aris in 1972 and raising their two sons in Oxford.
She returned to Myanmar in 1988 calling for democracy before being placed in house arrest where she was released and re-detained several times.
She was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, and was granted Freedom of the City in 1997 for her 'long struggle with democracy' after she became an international symbol of resistance to Myanmar's military regime.
In 2012 after political liberalisation in Myanmar in 2010 allowed her to travel she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Civil Law by the University of Oxford.
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But, after she became de facto civilian leader of Myanmar in 2016, the Myanmar military launched “clearance operations” after attacks by Rohingya militants, a Muslim minority in Myanmar.
She faced severe criticism for defending the security forces' brutal actions as operating under 'rule of law', losing her title as a moral voice in the world, in 2017 Oxford City Council voted to strip her of the Freedom of the City, stating they did not wish to honour those who “turn a blind eye to violence.”
She has not been seen publicly since 2021, with the last official photograph of her taken in April this year when she was moved from prison to house arrest, and her sentence was reduced.
On Monday, the ICRC confirmed in a statement that one of its delegates visited Suu Kyi, adhering to its standards and procedures for visiting people deprived of liberty, and conversed with her privately.
Details of the conversation were not disclosed.
Two other photographs showed Suu Kyi with a pink birthday cake which bore an inscription suggesting it was from her 81st birthday in June.
The release comes in the wake of increasing calls from other countries, including Myanmar's fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, for engagement with or access to Suu Kyi as part of a solution to the country's political turmoil.
Her younger son, Kim Aris, based in London along with Myanmar democracy activists, has been running an online campaign demanding evidence of her wellbeing.
Welcoming the reported ICRC visit, Mr Aris declared it could be the first positive development concerning his mother in over five years.
"Mr Aris said, "This may be a first step, but it must not be the last."
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