By AFP
A fifth batch of conscripts Myanmar’s junta hopes will help reverse its battlefield losses has begun training, state media reported on Tuesday.
A military source also told Agence France-Presse the new batch followed around 15,000 other conscripts who had already completed their training.
The junta enforced a conscription law in February, three years after its coup that sparked armed uprisings across Myanmar and as it reeled from a string of defeats.
The law allows the military to summon any man aged 18-35 and woman aged 18-27 to serve in the armed forces for at least two years.
“Eligible citizens” from the fifth batch arrived at the “respective military training depots” on Monday, according to state-run outlet The Global New Light of Myanmar, without saying how many were involved.
Previous batches of conscripts who have completed their training “are serving duties in their respective regiments and units”, the newspaper said, without specifying where or in what capacity.
Three batches of around 5,000 men had completed their three-month training so far, a military source told AFP, requesting anonymity in order to talk to the media.
“So we can say about 15,000 trainees have concluded the training so far and are serving their duty around the country,” the source said.
A video uploaded by a pro-military vlogger on Tuesday purported to show scores of new conscripts arriving at a camp in Bago Region’s Taungoo Township in central Myanmar to begin training.
Rights groups estimate tens of thousands of young people have fled Myanmar to avoid being called up to the deeply unpopular military that ousted the National League for Democracy elected government in 2021.
Junta troops are accused of bloody rampages and of using air and artillery strikes to punish civilian communities suspected of opposing its rule.
Local media have reported cases of young men being pulled off the streets in Yangon and other cities and taken away to undergo military training.
The junta has denied the reports.
Ethnic armed groups and pro-democracy People’s Defence Forces formed after the coup have seized territory from the military in the north and west of Myanmar in recent months.
Last month, the ethnic armed group Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army seized the military’s North Eastern Command in the town of Lashio in northern Shan State, home to about 150,000 people.
The capture of the regional command – the first by opponents of the junta since the coup – sparked rare public criticism of the top generals by its supporters.
Some analysts have recently estimated Myanmar’s military can call on around 150,000 active personnel, as well as tens of thousands of police and militia forces.
The military service law was written by a previous junta in 2010 but was never previously brought into force.
The terms of service can be extended up to five years during a state of emergency – which the junta declared when it seized power and has extended every six months since then.
Those ignoring a summons to serve can be jailed for five years.
