Armed group allied with Myanmar military conscripting civilians in Sagaing Region

Residents began fleeing the town of Banmauk, Sagaing Region this week after a junta-allied armed group ordered that the residents of each ward provide them a quota of new enlistees, locals said. Officers of the Shanni Nationalities Army (SNA) reached an agreement with Banmauk’s ward administrators on Monday to conscript new members for combat and security service in the SNA, and began compiling household member registration lists for this purpose, according to Banmauk residents. On the same day, the SNA began seeking recruits in Banmauk, taking 30 men between the ages of 18 and 40 from Hlwa Sin Kone Ward, according to a local man with close ties to resistance forces active in the area. “People from the other wards had time to escape, so they all fled. Many people ran away,” the man said. An SNA fighter in the jungle in 2016 (Photo: SNA) Attempts to reach SNA spokesperson Col. Sai Aung Mong for comment about the reported forced recruitment effort are ongoing. This is not the first mandatory recruitment drive the SNA has conducted in the township. Previously, when they sought to enlist villagers living north of Banmauk in areas predominantly inhabited by ethnically Tai Lai (Shan-ni), Kadu, and Kanan people, it was common for locals to appeal to local resistance forces for help, Banmauk Township residents said. While residents of Banmauk and some surrounding villages are still able to escape conscription by fleeing to areas controlled by the resistance, the SNA continues to forcibly recruit residents from villages under their control. Last year, the junta supported SNA forces’ capture of most of the rural areas and villages from resistance forces west of Banmauk’s urban wards. In Banmauk Township, the Myanmar military has generally led combat operations and manned most of the township’s rural outposts in the past, but has entrusted the SNA with security inside Banmauk’s urban wards. At present, residents said, only a small force from the junta’s Light Infantry Division (LID) 77 is still operating in Banmauk, with SNA forces practically in full control of security. An attempt at forced recruitment in a village On December 14, two days before the SNA and ward administrators conscripted civilian residents from Banmauk’s Hlwa Sin Kone ward, the SNA also demanded 50 new enlistees from the village of Naung Meit Lon, a predominantly Shan-ni community north of Banmauk. However, the village’s residents openly refused to cooperate. The next day, when SNA forces returned with three large trucks, anti-junta resistance forces carried out an attack using drones, killing one armed SNA member and wounding another, according to the source associated with Banmauk Township-based resistance forces. “They brought three trucks, planning to force the whole village into porter duty,” he said. “Some villagers were already on the trucks and when they called for help, the resistance groups used drones to launch three bombs. One SNA soldier was injured, and one died while undergoing treatment.” The SNA members retreated without managing to take any recruits with them, according to the source, who added that the drone strikes also caused injuries to some of the villagers. The SNA, which used to train armed young people from Sagaing Region to fight against the Myanmar military before the 2021 coup, later began to join the side of the military in some of its battles in Kachin State and Sagaing Region, where the group operates and controls territory. For around two years, members of the SNA have fought alongside junta forces in clashes with the armed resistance and the powerful anti-junta armed group Kachin Independence Army (KIA). Banmauk is on Sagaing Region’s boundary with Kachin State, the home territory and stronghold of the KIA. A large force of SNA fighters has reportedly cooperated with the Myanmar army to defend a junta outpost in Indaw Township, Sagaing Region, against offensive operations by the resistance.

Armed group allied with Myanmar military conscripting civilians in Sagaing Region

Local sources said the Shanni Nationalities Army (SNA), an ally of the military junta, pressed 30 men into service in Banmauk, but resistance fighters reportedly thwarted a similar forced recruitment attempt in a village north of the town

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