The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed it is providing consular assistance for two Australian nationals in Myanmar.

It is understood business consultants Matthew O’Kane and Christa Avery, a dual Canadian-Australian citizen, are under house arrest after trying to leave the country on a relief flight on Friday.

The couple run a bespoke consultancy business in Yangon.

“Due to our privacy obligations, we will not provide further detail,” DFAT said.

A third Australian, economist Sean Turnell, an advisor to ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi who was arrested a week after the putsch, also remains in custody.

Professor Turnell with ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Photo: LinkedIn

Weekend violence failed to deter hundreds of doctors and nurses from donning hard hats and brandishing posters of Ms Suu Kyi as they marched at dawn through Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city and cultural capital.

Mandalay has been the scene of some of the worst violence from police and soldiers since the coup and local media said the rally was staged at dawn to evade security forces.

The protests came a day after a local monitoring group confirmed the killing of four protesters at the hands of security forces around the country.

Two of the deaths were in Yangon, the country’s commercial hub, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.