Myanmar junta activates conscription law following battlefield losses

Name: Myanmar’s junta extends state of emergency amid struggle to contain rebel forces
Uploaded: 2024-02-10T19:57:16.000Z
Duration: 1 min 19 s
Description: Myanmar’s junta extends state of emergency amid struggle to contain rebel forces

The move allows the military to summon all men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 to serve for at least 2 years

The junta is struggling to crush widespread armed opposition to its rule and recently suffered a series of losses to an alliance of ethnic minority armed groups

2-MIN READ2-MIN

A soldier stands guard on a blockaded road to Myanmar’s parliament in Naypyidaw in February 2021. Photo: AFP

Agence France-Presse

Published: 3:57am, 11 Feb 2024Updated: 11:53am, 11 Feb 2024

Myanmar’s junta is enforcing a law allowing the military to summon all men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 to serve for at least two years, it said on Saturday, as it struggles to crush opposition to its 2021 coup.

The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil since the military takeover in February of that year, which ended a 10-year experiment with democracy and sparked mass protests and a crackdown on dissent.

Three years on, the junta is struggling to crush widespread armed opposition to its rule and recently suffered a series of stunning losses to an alliance of ethnic minority armed groups.

The junta “issued the notification of the effectiveness of People’s Military Service Law starting from February 10, 2024”, the junta’s information team said in a statement.

01:19

Myanmar’s junta extends state of emergency amid struggle to contain rebel forces

The law was written by a previous junta in 2010 but was never brought into force.