MYANMAR – Family members of the deceased shared that a large number of the young recruits of the junta council freshly conscripted under the conscription law are dying at the front lines but the junta council is covering up the news and won’t inform the family members nor return the bodies of the deceased recruits.
Starting this April, the junta council forcibly conscripted young people, made them attend military training then sending them to the front lines. The conscripted young men were not allowed to bring their mobile phones to the front lines, and had to cut off contact with their families. And when they are killed at the front lines, the family members are not informed of the death, with some families contacted around a month after the death but majority of the families are not informed. The bodies of a large number of those fresh recruits who died at the front lines were also not recovered.
“A lot of the fresh recruits who finished military training were killed in Rakhine. But the families are not informed of the death. Only when the families contacted were they informed of their deaths. Some families only found out about those who were killed in Rakhine about a month after the death. There were also those who died in northern Shan. The military does not inform it to the families at all,” said a mother of a conscripted soldier who died in action.
Mr. Nay Min Htet, a fresh recruit in his 20s from Nyaung U – Chaung U Village in Dala Township, Yangon Division who was part of the first batch of conscripted soldiers was similarly sent to the frontline after completing military training and was reportedly killed in battle on August 31 but his body was not returned to his family and the family was only informed of his death on September 4.
“Mr. Nay Min Htet was part of the first batch. Because his family is poor, he accepted the money and entered the army. His parents can only hold his funeral four days after his death. After completing military training and before he was sent to the frontline, his family was contacted and asked to pay 300,000 Kyats. It was a bribe to not be sent to the frontline. Because his family’s financial situation was not great, they couldn’t pay. They were told that he would be made a guard instead if they paid the bribe. But the parents were not able to pay. Now he’s died,” explained a local resident.
The terrorist junta council has been increasingly abducting young people all over the country as they were unable to meet the quota for the fifth batch of conscription this month.
