Myanmar’s struggling junta to start drafting young people as soldiers

Myanmar’s ruling military plans to call up young people for mandatory service starting in April and also require retired security personnel to serve, media reports cited a junta spokesman as saying, as the army struggles to crush an anti-junta insurgency.

The Southeast Asian country has been in turmoil since the military seized power from an elected government in a 2021 coup and plans by the junta to call up more people to fight point to the military being under growing pressure.

Last Saturday, Myanmar’s junta declared a law governing mandatory military service would be enforced for men ages 18 to 35 and women ages 18 to 27 for up to two years. On Tuesday, it said this would begin in April.

“We are working to implement the conscription after the new year holiday in April,” junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told BBC Burmese, referring to Myanmar’s most important holiday, known as Thingyan. He said medical checks would be conducted and each intake would number about 5,000.

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Zaw Min Tun did not answer a phone call seeking comment, but state media MRTV also cited him as saying retired members of the security forces who had left within the past five years would also have to return to the army.

He did not specify how many would be called up nor the timing but said it would include only those “who were necessary.”

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A law mandating conscription was introduced in 2010 but had not been enforced. Those who fail to comply with the draft face up to five years in prison, the legislation says.

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The junta has not disclosed details about the military’s strength, but analysts have said that it faces challenges in recruiting soldiers and has resorted to deploying non-combat personnel to the front line.

Since October, the Tatmadaw, as the military is known, has suffered personnel losses while battling a coordinated offensive by an alliance of three ethnic-minority insurgent groups, allied with pro-democracy fighters.