29 young men escape Myanmar junta’s conscription

Most plan to join rebel groups fighting against military rule.

Sep 12, 2024 - 04:00
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29 young men escape Myanmar junta’s conscription

Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese

Twenty-nine young men who were repatriated by Thailand to Myanmar and conscripted by the junta for military service escaped captivity while being transferred to a training center, an ethnic rebel official said Wednesday.

Most of them – 22 to be exact – have decided to join armed insurgent groups fighting the junta, while five will return home, the official said. The whereabouts of two are unknown.

Desperate to shore up its dwindling ranks amid mounting losses to rebel groups and mass surrenders, the junta enacted a conscription law that came into effect in April, three years after the military seized power in a coup d’etat.

Under the law, men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 must serve a minimum of two years in the military. Young people have been fleeing the country in droves since its implementation, many of whom have traveled to neighboring Thailand where they landed in prison on immigration charges.

The 29 men were first arrested in Thailand before being repatriated to Myanmar, said Padoh Saw El Nar, an official with the Karen National Union in Tanintharyi’s Myeik district.

They were en route by sea to the No. 12 Advanced Military Training Depot in Tanintharyi’s Pulaw township on Sunday when they escaped from a convoy of seven junta boats, the official said.

“They killed two guard soldiers on the way and took two guns from them,” he told RFA Burmese.

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Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun about the young men forcibly recruited for military service went unanswered Wednesday.

Thai authorities have deported dozens of youths in recent months to Myanmar, where they are at risk of forced recruitment and persecution for avoiding military service. 

Many were held in Thailand’s Ranong Prison and repatriated via Myanmar’s southernmost port of Kawthoung in Tanintharyi region, according to Ranong-based relief organizations, family members and residents of Kawthoung.

Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.