About 30 young men were rounded up and detained on Wednesday afternoon in the capital of Sagaing Region after they skipped pre-conscription medical exams, residents said.
Most of the young people selected as potential draftees in Monywa town fled before they could be detained, residents of the capital said, adding that a list naming young people selected for pre-conscription medical exams had circulated on social media on March 25.
Residents said they believed that the names were taken from household registration lists, which include data on the number of people living in a home, their ages and their employment status.
The Irrawaddy was unable to confirm the list’s authenticity.
Residents of Monywa said men between 18 and 35 years of age in nine of its 26 wards received letters on March 26 telling them they had been selected for pre-conscription medical exams the next day.
The district-level administration department in Monywa had summoned the selected men to report to the department at 7 am on March 27 and told them to bring their personal items and clothing, residents said.
Not one of them showed up.
“No one came for the medical exam on Wednesday morning,” one Monywa resident told The Irrawaddy. “I heard [junta personnel] wearing ordinary clothes went door to door to abduct those included on the list of names in the afternoon.”
A resident of the capital’s Htan Taw ward confirmed the events and said about eight men were detained in his ward. “None of those summoned showed up on Wednesday. So, [junta personnel] went to the wards. They carried household registration lists and arrested about eight men in Htan Taw and about six in Innset [ward].”
Residents of Monywa said they did not know where the detainees were taken. They also said that some of those detained on Wednesday were not even on the conscription list.
Junta cheerleaders have shared photos on social media of draftees being sent to military training schools.
The regime’s central conscription body previously announced that military training for the first intake of conscripts was scheduled to begin in early May, and that a list of people whose ages made them eligible for the draft was being drafted.
Candidates selected by the central conscription body receive medical exams at military hospitals. This was scheduled to begin on March 27. Those who pass the medical exam will be sent to a training depot.
The junta activated the national conscription law on Feb. 10, shocking the people of Myanmar.
Between then and March 22, junta administrative officials summoned eligible people to ward offices in 127 townships, according to Data for Myanmar. Potential recruits were selected by lottery, it said.
Evading conscription is punishable by three to five years in prison.
