Sent to die: Myanmar’s conscripts caught between a junta’s war and a nation’s collapse

The promise was simple: the war was nearly over. For three months, 20-year-old Chit Ko Zin trained under Myanmar’s military. Officers assured him and dozens of other recruits that the country’s political situation was improving, that they would likely be assigned to checkpoints or routine security duties, and that they had little to fear. “You won’t be deployed anywhere special or have to fight,” he recalled being told during training. “Be at ease.” Within weeks, however, he was in one of the country’s most dangerous conflict zones, trapped in a battlefield where retreat was punishable by death and survival depended largely on luck. “We could neither advance nor retreat,” he later said. “Moving forward meant being shot by enemy forces. Retreating meant the battalion commander threatened to shoot us from behind.” His story is one of many emerging from Myanmar’s intensifying civil war, where young men conscripted under the junta’s People’s Military Service Law are increasingly finding themselves on the frontlines of a conflict they never chose to join. While the leader of Myanmar’s coup regime has called for an end to the civil war that began with his seizure of power more than five years ago, it is clear that he has no intention of de-escalating the conflict. Across the country, offensives continue as junta forces attempt to reclaim territory lost to ethnic armed organisations and resistance fighters. At the centre of those campaigns are conscripts. Former soldiers, defectors, resistance commanders, and captured recruits describe a system in which newly enlisted civilians are treated as expendable manpower—deployed into some of the most dangerous operations while experienced soldiers remain protected. For many, military service begins not with patriotism or duty, but with coercion. On July 1, 2025, Chit Ko Zin was cycling back to his dormitory in Yangon after spending time with friends following work at a construction site. He never made it home. According to his account, soldiers stopped him, beat him, and forcibly detained him. Taken to a military base, he was given two options: either serve in the military for two years or go to prison. “What crime did I commit to deserve prison?” he asked, but received no response. Faced with an impossible choice, he agreed to enlist. After basic training in Yangon and additional instruction in Magway Region, he and 118 other soldiers were deployed to the Padan area near Magway’s border with Rakhine State, where fierce fighting between junta troops and the Arakan Army (AA) had become routine. Most of the unit consisted of conscripts. According to Chit Ko Zin, the promises made during training evaporated almost immediately. The newcomers dug trenches while regular soldiers supervised. They carried out dangerous tasks. They absorbed the brunt of attacks. Over roughly six weeks, nearly half of the 118-man unit was killed. “Many conscripts were hit by snipers or drone-dropped bombs,” he said. The battlefield became a trap. Ahead lay enemy fire. Behind stood commanders threatening punishment—or worse—for anyone attempting to withdraw. In January this year, after resistance forces captured a strategic hill near his position, Chit Ko Zin was taken prisoner by the AA. The group did more to ensure his safety than his own commanders, he told Myanmar Now. “The AA evacuated us despite artillery and drone attacks,” he recalled. “That is how we survived.” Civilians conscripted into military service undergo military training (Photo: People’s Conscripts Gathering / Telegram) Used as human shields Accounts like Chit Ko Zin’s directly contradict assurances previously given by military authorities. When the People’s Military Service Law was implemented in 2024, junta spokesperson Maj.-Gen. Zaw Min Tun publicly stated that new conscripts would not be sent to frontline combat positions. But the testimonies of captured soldiers, defectors, and resistance groups paint a different picture. Again and again, recruits speak of being placed at the front of advancing columns, tasked with dangerous labour, or deployed into combat soon after training. Some resistance commanders go further, alleging that conscripts are being used as human shields. The accusation is difficult to independently verify in every instance, but similar accounts emerge from different battlefields and from individuals with no connection to one another. Among them is Thura Aung, a 19-year-old native of Indaw in Kachin State who had already spent time on the other side of the conflict. Before his conscription, he was a member of a local resistance force aligned with the National Unity Government. Last October, however, his focus was elsewhere. Like many young people facing economic hardship, he had made plans to go abroad to find work to help support his family. But he didn’t get far before he was arrested and forcibly recruited. While travelling to Yangon en route to a job in Malaysia, he stayed at a guesthouse in Shwebo with his brothers. Suddenly, armed soldiers, police, and local officials arrived and detained the group. His older brother, who had HIV, was released after presenting medical documents. His younger brother was freed because he was underage. Only Thura Aung remained. He soon found himself enrolled in military training. After completing a three-month course in southern Shan State, he was assigned to operations under Light Infantry Division 99 and sent into combat zones in Magway Region. Unlike professional soldiers, however, he was never trusted with a rifle. Instead, he carried ammunition and supplies. “We only carried the bags and backpacks they gave us,” he said. “Neither my batch nor the batch before us was allowed to carry firearms.” He soon learned why he was never armed. Conscripts were used to transport supplies, absorb casualties, and lead advances. As cannon fodder, they didn’t need weapons, which might allow them to resist orders or defect. According to Thura Aung, officers frequently remained behind while newly trained recruits were pushed forward. “When fighting breaks out, officers stay at the rear,” he said. “They force us to move to the front and threaten us, saying, ‘I will shoot you.’” His description echoes testimony from other defectors who portray a battlefield hierarchy in which regular soldiers are considered valuable assets and conscripts disposable replacements. One fellow recruit lost a leg after stepping on a landmine, he said. Others never returned. Civilians conscripted into military service undergo military training (Photo: People’s Conscripts Gathering / Telegram) Courage pills Among the more troubling allegations made by former conscripts are claims of widespread stimulant use in the ranks. Several describe the availability of methamphetamine pills among frontline troops. Known colloquially as “Yae Sae” or “courage pills,” the drugs were reportedly used during military advances. Thura Aung says recruits were not explicitly forced to take them but were permitted to purchase and consume them. “I saw conscripts who bought and used these pills,” he said, echoing similar claims made by other captured and defected soldiers. While the true scale of stimulant use remains unclear, multiple testimonies suggest that narcotics have become a feature of life on some battlefields. Resistance commanders say the effects are often visible. Captured conscripts, they say, are frequently intoxicated or under the influence of stimulants during operations. Combined with promises of looting opportunities and the pressures of combat, the result can be deadly. “Some become excited, lose their judgment, and blindly charge forward when ordered,” said one resistance commander in Bago Region. Eventually, Thura Aung decided he had to get out, even if it meant risking death. His chance came during guard duty. Desperate but determined, he grabbed a rifle and ran. Ahead of him lay minefields, and behind were pursuing soldiers. For nearly an hour he sprinted without looking back, somehow managing to evade both threats to his life. “I thought, ‘I won’t die at their hands,’” he recalled. Eventually, he reached resistance-held territory and found refuge with anti-junta forces—a rare case of real courage delivering an unwilling recruit from danger, instead of headlong into it by their uncaring superiors. Civilians conscripted into military service undergo military training (Photo: People’s Conscripts Gathering / Telegram) ‘Let the conscripts die’ Perhaps the starkest testimony comes from Naing Khant Kyaw, a Rakhine conscript who later defected to the Arakan Army. According to him, military officers openly acknowledged the expendability of conscripts. “Even one regular soldier is not worth sacrificing for 20 conscripts,” he recalled hearing. The logic was simple. Professional soldiers represent years of investment and training. Conscripts, by contrast, can be replaced by the next recruitment batch. “Let the conscripts die,” he said officers would tell troops. “There are plenty more batches left.” It is only since February 2024, when the People’s Military Service Law came into force, that the junta has been able to treat its troops as utterly expendable. Before this, the military struggled to keep up with the demands for manpower in a civil war begun three years earlier, amid low recruitment numbers and a high rate of desertion and defections. Over the past two years, however, the military has been able to create an assembly line of new recruits to fill its ranks. Training batches have continued to graduate across the country. Officially, the program is framed as a national service initiative, but most see it as forced conscription. Families have increasingly taken to social media to complain about arbitrary recruitment, allegations of bribery, and unequal enforcement. Even some figures normally sympathetic to the military have expressed concern. One prominent nationalist monk publicly criticised what he described as a system in which money and connections determine who serves and who avoids recruitment. Those without influence, he argued, bear the burden. Meanwhile, resistance leaders warn that conscription is changing the dynamics of the war. Where junta units once struggled to field enough troops for large offensives, commanders now have access to thousands of additional recruits. The result is larger military columns, more sustained operations, and continuing casualties on all sides. The military’s push for manpower comes as fighting shows little sign of ending. Reports from military sources indicate preparations for continued operations throughout the rainy season, suggesting that major offensives may continue despite difficult conditions. If so, more young men will likely find themselves thrust into the conflict—some as resistance fighters, others in the uniform of the military, including many conscripts who never intended to become soldiers at all. For them, the war is not an ideological struggle or a strategic contest, but a daily calculation about survival. And the broader consequence extends beyond military casualties. Every recruit killed, wounded, or traumatised represents another loss for a country already devastated by years of conflict. “Wasting the youth is the same as wasting the future,” said Kyaw Ko Ko, general secretary of the Social Democratic Party, warning that a deeper tragedy is unfolding beneath the battlefield statistics. Myanmar’s civil war is not only destroying towns, infrastructure, and livelihoods. It is consuming a generation. And while junta leader Min Aung Hlaing says he wants peace, his regime continues to round up young men and send them toward the front. As the noose around the necks of the young continues to tighten, escape becomes an increasingly remote possibility. This leaves them with only one choice—to fight or die—that is really no choice at all.

Sent to die: Myanmar’s conscripts caught between a junta’s war and a nation’s collapse

As the country’s rulers promise peace, an entire generation finds itself consumed by the army’s insatiable appetite for new recruits

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