Ko Soe chose to risk his life rather than serve in the junta’s army after being forcibly conscripted in southern Myanmar’s Tanintharyi Region.
The 29-year-old was among 30 young men out of around 270 conscripts who staged a daring escape in Tanintharyi’s Palaw Township after overpowering two regime guards during their transfer from Myeik Township to a military training camp in Palaw.
One conscript was shot dead during the escape. The Irrawaddy had the opportunity to interview three of the 29 survivors, uncovering details of how they were forcibly drafted before managing to escape the regime’s clutches.
Originally from Dawei in Tanintharyi Region, Ko Soe joined the anti-coup demonstrations that swept across Myanmar after the military seized power in February 2021. The escalating crackdown on dissent and subsequent economic crisis forced him to depart to Thailand, where he lived and worked in Ranong for nearly four years without legal documentation.
But life in exile was perilous. By 2023, Thai authorities had ramped up their arrests of undocumented migrants, targeting workers like Ko Soe. Eventually his luck ran out; he was arrested and imprisoned for two months in 2024 before being transferred to Ranong Immigration Detention Center.
The center sends back Myanmar nationals detained for illegal entry or other offenses. Its repatriation of detainees was largely ignored by the junta until it began enforcing the People’s Military Service Law in February 2024.
After a month in the Ranong center, Ko Soe was among over 100 detainees deported to Kawthaung, Tanintharyi Region in August last year.
Upon his arrival in Kawthaung, Ko Soe was taken to Infantry Battalion Headquarters 262 along with 36 others selected by the regime aged from 18 to 38.
Authorities initially framed their detention as a “temporary health checkup”, assuring the group they would be released within a week. However, the junta officials’ true intent soon emerged: mandatory conscription into the military for a term of two years and four months.
“My family tried everything to secure my release,” Ko Soe recounted.
“My family planned to pay bribes—significant amounts of money, up to 8 million kyats [around US$1,800], but they [military officers] insisted that military service was a citizen’s duty. I, however, witnessed that some individuals were released under certain circumstances, but for most of us, money couldn’t change our fate.”
The regime officers told them that they would receive salaries for serving in the military and—after completing their service—their freedom, Ko Soe said.
Another of the escapees, Ko Thant Zin, 38, who lived in Ranong for 28 years, working there and living with his wife and child, shared a similar story. Despite having all the necessary legal documents for living in Thailand, he was arrested by the Thai police along with four Myanmar neighbors. His ward administrator ordered his arrest after he failed to comply with a urine test as part of an anti-drug crackdown.
He had to spend 45 days at the Ranong Immigration Detention Center and his Certificate of Identity (CI) was confiscated by immigration officers.
Before being sent to Kawthaung with over 100 Myanmar citizens, including 70 men, in August, he witnessed a Myanmar military officer visit the Ranong center to pre-select men, including himself, for conscription.
Upon arriving in Kawthaung, most of the men were transferred to the regime’s Battalion 262 headquarters while the women and children were released. There were two or three rooms at the military headquarters holding conscripts. Ko Thant Zin stayed in one of them along with 42 other conscripts. Medical checkups were conducted, but the regime officers didn’t share the results.
“I was able to contact my wife during that time, but there was no way to secure my release,” he said.
“There was absolutely no way out. They told us we have to serve in the military and mentioned that salaries would be provided. Refusing wasn’t an option. They assured us the service wouldn’t last long, but they gave no clear timeframe,” said Ko Thant Zin.
Sharing his fate was deportee Ko Kyaw Htwe, a 26-year-old Myanmar citizen who was born and raised in Thailand, and forcibly conscripted along with Ko Thant Zin.
Some days later, nearly 60 men including Ko Soe, Ko Thant Zin and Ko Kyaw Htwe were transferred on a cargo ship to an education center run by the military in Myeik Township, where a total of over 200 men, including many deportees from Thailand and some snatched from buses, had been rounded up for military service. All had their phones confiscated by the military officers.
Escaping the junta, joining the resistance
After staying at the military base for some weeks, Ko Soe, Ko Thant Zin and Ko Kyaw Htwe were among 270 conscripts transported on two navy vessels from Myeik to a military training camp in Palaw Township in early September.
Upon arriving at a place on the coast in Palaw, they were again transferred, this time using small local fishing boats requisitioned by regime soldiers for traveling along narrow river routes. Each fishing boat carried 30 to 50 conscripts and up to three military guards. One boat carrying 30 conscripts including Ko Soe, Ko Kyaw Htwe and Ko Thant Zin was guarded by only two soldiers.
Faced with the prospect of serving the regime they despised, Ko Soe and about six fellow conscripts secretly planned a daring escape. Their goal was to disarm and capture the two regime soldiers and turn them over to a Palaw-based resistance group fighting against the junta.
“We didn’t intend to kill them; we were young and not murderers,” Ko Soe explained.
“But during the struggle to escape, things escalated. One of our conscripts was shot dead and the two soldiers were also killed accidentally. It wasn’t what we wanted, but it happened.”
The slain conscript was 19-year-old Ko Htet Nay Myo, a native of Bokpyin in Tanintharyi Region. He too had been conscripted after being deported by the Ranong Immigration Detention Center.
“We were unarmed, and they had guns. The fear of dying was real, but I had already decided: I would rather die resisting than serving the regime military,” said Ko Soe.
Ko Thant Zin, who was among those who escaped, had the same feeling as Ko Soe, saying he had seen news reports that many new conscripts were being sent to the front lines without receiving military training, and dying in battles against resistance groups.
“We feared the same fate and that all of us would likely die on the front lines,” he said.
“I reject the military dictatorship and refuse to serve in their military. I also didn’t want my fellow conscripts to get into trouble. If someone had to die, let it be one or two of us, not everyone. If given the chance, we would release everyone on the boat. With that resolve, we fought back, and were determined to free everyone on the boat,” Ko Thant Zin recounted.
After the two soldiers had been overpowered and their weapons seized, fishermen transported all 29 conscripts to the nearest village, where they sought refuge with Squadron 5 of the Karen National Defense Organization (KNDO), the armed wing of the country’s oldest ethnic revolutionary group, the Karen National Union.
Ko Thant Zin said that when he gets the chance, he wants to reunite with his wife and child in Ranong.
“However, returning back to my family is not easy at this moment. I will continue to resist and join the revolution,” said Ko Thant Zin, who is now a member of a People’s Defense Force (PDF) group based in Palaw. The PDF is the armed wing of the civilian National Unity Government (NUG) in Palaw.
Another survivor of the attack on the regime soldiers, Ko Kyaw Htwe, said he also planned to get involved in the anti-regime revolution.
Resorting to forced conscription
After suffering battlefield defeats that saw an estimated 7,000 regime personnel including several generals—the figure includes family members of junta forces—killed, captured or surrender during the anti-regime Operation 1027 and related operations launched in late 2023, the regime activated the forced conscription law on Feb. 10, 2024.
Junta Defense Minister Tin Aung San leads the national-level committee overseeing conscription.
Subsequently, the regime enacted the Reserve Forces Law to recall veterans and formed the Central Supervisory Committee for People’s Security and Anti-terrorism to recruit and arm men over 35 to defend wards and villages.
The conscription law requires men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 to serve in the military for two to five years. This has triggered an exodus of young people, prompting the regime to ban men aged 23 to 31 from working abroad and restrict those aged 18 to 35 from leaving the country via airports.
The junta has called up nine batches of conscripts, totaling over 30,000 men, since launching the conscription process in March.
Struggling to address severe troop shortages, the junta is now abducting healthy men from homes, streets and buses—even in major cities like Yangon and Mandalay—bypassing the formal procedures outlined in the conscription law.
Facing recruitment challenges at home, the junta has turned to Thailand’s Ranong Immigration Detention Center, using it as a recruitment hub to conscript detained Myanmar men into military service.
A father’s heartbreak
U Mahar Kyaw, who has worked with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Thailand for nearly a decade, was unable to secure the release of his 26-year-old elder son, Nyein Chan, who was conscripted by the Myanmar junta in Kawthaung.
He and his family of three fled to Thailand in February 2022 after regime forces confiscated their house and farmlands, allegedly targeting him for his work with the IOM.
His elder son, born and raised in Thailand, was arrested by Thai authorities in September for an expired passport. He was detained at the Ranong Immigration Detention Center before being sent to Kawthaung, where he was conscripted into the regime military’s Infantry Battalion 262.
U Mahar Kyaw stated he was not allowed to meet his son while he was detained in Ranong. He added that while some families have managed to secure the release of their loved ones through bribes at the Ranong Immigration Center, this option was not available in his case.
Unable to return to Kawthaung himself, he sought help from relatives in Kawthaung and offered a bribe of 1.4 million kyats to a military officer to secure his son’s release. However, his attempt was rejected.
After being given three months of military training in Bokpyin Township, Tanintharyi Region, his son has been sent to the front lines in Rakhine State, where the junta has suffered heavy defeats, losing 14 of the state’s 17 townships to the ethnic rebel group the Arakan Army (AA).
“Last week [in December] my son contacted us by phone saying he was in Mawlamyine Township [in Mon State] and had been ordered to a frontline position in Rakhine,” U Mahar Kyaw told The Irrawaddy.
“When I think of my son, it breaks my heart. I can’t help but cry.”
A mother’s struggle to save her son
Another Myanmar migrant, Daw Moe Moe, a mother of six, experienced a different fate when her son was detained by the junta. Originally from Kawthaung, her entire family of eight was forced to flee to Ranong, Thailand due to their anti-regime activism. The regime raided and confiscated their home in Kawthaung.
Her 22-year-old son was arrested in Ranong in June for being in Thailand illegally, and was deported to Kawthaung along with over 100 other Myanmar people in July. Fortunately, her son was spared conscription due to a disability, the result of a leg injury sustained in a motorcycle accident. However, around 28 young men from his group were sent to the junta’s Infantry Battalion 262 for military service.
Even though he had been declared unfit to fight, to secure her son’s release from the junta in Kawthaung, Daw Moe Moe had to pay a bribe of 6,000 baht (around $170) through the regime-appointed ward administrator. One of her neighbors had to pay up to 17,000 baht each to free two family members conscripted into Battalion 262 in Kawthaung.
Daw Moe Moe said she does not want her sons to serve in the regime’s military, which she blamed for the arbitrary killing of civilians, including children and the elderly.
“I have told my sons to try to escape, even if it means risking death, if they are conscripted by the regime. There is no survival or way back home once conscripted. However, if it is for the country and the PDF, they are willing to fight.”
The Irrawaddy contacted the regime-formed Tanintharyi Regional Oversight Committee for Conscription for comment on its forced drafting of Myanmar deportees from Thailand, but no one answered the phone.
How the junta drafts deportees in Kawthaung
Upon arriving at Kawthaung port from Ranong, deportees are taken to a covered stadium in the town. According to sources interviewed by The Irrawaddy, all able-bodied men aged 18 to 45 are subsequently sent to Military Battalion 262 for conscription.
In the past, conscripts had an opportunity to secure their release by paying large bribes, but that is no longer an option for most. Certain individuals can avoid conscription if they have specific connections, influence, or can afford very large bribes. Elderly or disabled men who are deemed to be of no use to the military must pay bribes before they are released.
Ko Kyar, the spokesperson of the Kawthaung Township’s People’s Defense Force (PDF) under the command of the NUG, told The Irrawaddy the regime has been openly drafting deportees from Ranong since July, and even those individuals who have connections in the military are no longer exempt, as regime officials are struggling to meet their quotas of conscripts for each training batch.
How a Thai detention center aids junta conscription
A shadowy system has quietly developed to facilitate repatriation between Ranong and Kawthaung that leaves Myanmar migrants facing deportation and forced conscription—and their devastating consequences.
Interviews with rights activists, migrant workers and affected families reveal a systematic operation shrouded in corruption and human rights abuses.
Following Myanmar’s 2021 military coup, protests erupted periodically at Ranong Immigration Detention Center due to prolonged stays caused by the regime’s delays in accepting deportees, according to Ko Thar Kyaw, a migrant rights activist who talked with The Irrawaddy.
Before the coup, his organization, Meikta Thahaya Self-Administered Funeral Welfare Association, was allowed to assist detained Myanmar nationals. For a while after the coup, he would also mediate detainees’ protests at the request of Thai immigration authorities.
Following the enforcement of Myanmar’s conscription law in February 2024, however, things changed. The regime began targeting detained Myanmar nationals for conscription from July. As a result, deportations have accelerated, now occurring two or three times a month.
The Irrawaddy also reviewed reports from the Ranong Immigration Office’s Facebook page and found that the department increased deportations to as many as three per month starting from June 2024. Between June and December, a total of 1,556 Myanmar nationals—mostly men—were handed over to Myanmar regime authorities in Kawthaung.
In comparison, only 890 individuals were deported during the year between April 2023 and March 2024.
Sources in Ranong revealed that in the past, it was possible to secure release from the Ranong center through bribes to Thai authorities. However, this practice has become completely impossible since the activation of Myanmar’s forced conscription law.
According to additional sources interviewed by The Irrawaddy, Myanmar regime authorities now frequently visit the Ranong Immigration Detention Center to check how many Myanmar detainees are there and to conscript capable men into military service.
Some estimate that over 300 young Myanmar men deported from Ranong have been conscripted by the junta since July, though The Irrawaddy could not independently verify these numbers.
Myanmar migrant activists including Ko Thar Kyaw and some family members of the conscripts say the deportation and conscription process appears to be a coordinated effort between Ranong immigration officials and Myanmar regime authorities. They emphasized that Thailand is knowingly deporting Myanmar nationals, fully aware that the deportees will face forced conscription upon their return.
“When I ask some Thai authorities why this kind of deportation cannot be stopped, their response is typically that it’s due to a legal obligation between the two governments,” said Ko Thar Kyaw.
“It is futile to reason with the junta as it has no rule of law or respect for human rights. This is a reality we all understand,” he said. “Thailand, however, claims to uphold the rule of law and human rights. So why does it knowingly send detainees into the hands of the junta? If these deportations stopped, our citizens could be spared immense suffering,”
The Irrawaddy reached out to the Ranong Immigration Office via its Facebook page for comment on the issue but had not received a response as of publication time.
Speaking with The Irrawaddy, Phil Robertson, director of Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates and former deputy director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, said the Thai government urgently needs to “find some degree of humanity” in dealing with migrant workers they capture in Thailand and recognize the severe danger deportees face from Myanmar authorities who are now placing priority on forced conscription into the armed forces.
“Thai Immigration, and especially the Ranong Immigration office, should immediately stop sending deportees back by boat to Kawthaung port where SAC [regime] military and police are waiting for them,” said Robertson.
He added that by placing deportees directly in the hands of SAC officials, Thailand is complicit in Myanmar authorities’ rights abuses, including extorting deportees for huge amounts and then sending those who cannot pay to the military conscription camps, where they are forced into the ranks of “one of the worst human rights abusing militaries in Southeast Asia”.
The Irrawaddy emailed the directors-generals of the Department of Asian Affairs and the Department of Information under Thailand’s Foreign Affairs Ministry for comment, and to ask about what steps they were taking to ensure the safety of Myanmar deportees, but they had not replied by publication time.
Preventing conscription of deportees
Concerning Thailand’s deportation of undocumented Myanmar citizens into the junta’s hands, the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC), a coalition of political groups opposing the junta, in late September issued a statement urging the Thai government to demonstrate empathy towards Myanmar people fleeing the junta’s human rights abuses.
The group also urged the Thai government to help save people fleeing the regime’s human rights abuses, and to develop programs to provide temporary residence for undocumented Myanmar individuals on its territory.
“With the military junta forcibly conscripting young people into its army, repatriating them is essentially sentencing them to death,” the NUCC said.
NUG spokesman U Kyaw Zaw told The Irrawaddy the civilian government had communicated with Thailand through diplomatic channels, asking them to ensure the safety of young people fleeing the junta’s forced conscription.
“Deportation of undocumented people may align with their legal frameworks, [but] from a humanitarian perspective, such action risks placing innocent youth back into the hands of the regime, where their lives are in grave danger,” he said.
He also urged all parties to act in accordance with international standards and refrain from deporting young people into a situation that could threaten their lives.
Robertson suggested Thai immigration officials use the so-called “soft deportation” method, whereby people are sent back into Myanmar across remote parts of the border, allowing them to evade arrest by the regime.
Another Thai immigration center in Sangkhla Buri District, Kanchanaburi Province uses such a practice, sending Myanmar detainees back to a border area near Karen State’s Phayathonzu area, where there are no regime authorities to receive them, according to a source interviewed by The Irrawaddy.
Robertson told The Irrawaddy the Thai government “must recognize that most Burmese deported to Myanmar face severe rights abuses by the junta, with forced conscription among the worst. How many thousands of more deportees must be press-ganged into the junta’s military before Bangkok’s leaders act to end its complicity?”
He also urged Bangkok-based embassies to raise “a massive hue and cry” against Thailand’s deportation practices and to urge Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra to instruct her officials to use the soft deportation option.
“Nearly everyone despises the junta in Myanmar. If I die, I want it to be while resisting oppression, not serving for the regime military. My mother might mourn for a while, but at least my name won’t be tarnished. Everyone dies eventually, but I want to die with dignity,” said Ko Soe, who led the daring escape from forced conscription along with the 29 other conscripts.
Note: For their safety, the names of the conscripts mentioned in this story have been changed.
