Nadine Osman
The Myanmar military abducted more than 1,000 Rohingya Muslim males from Rakhine State between February and April 2024, using a conscription law meant only for Myanmar citizens, despite the Rohingya’s lack of citizenship since the 1982 Citizenship Law.
Rohingya men and teens describe being seized in nighttime raids, lured with false citizenship promises, and intimidated with arrest, abduction, and violence. After enduring two weeks of rigorous training, they are deployed, many sent to the front lines of the escalating conflict between the junta and the Arakan Army in Rakhine State since November 2023, causing significant Rohingya casualties and injuries.
In late February, the Myanmar military carried out raids on villages in Buthidaung township, leading to the abduction of more than 150 Rohingya people. Based on testimonies from witnesses, Rohingya activists, and media sources, these actions were specifically aimed at the Rohingya community.
A 22-year-old Rohingya recounted that on the night of February 25, soldiers from a light infantry battalion forcibly seized him and 30 other young males at gunpoint.
“The youngest boy taken away with us was 15 years old,” he said. “There were three recruits under 18 among us. After we were apprehended and taken to the military battalion, we saw the list of Rohingya who were going to be recruited. All the Rohingya youths in the region were included.”
Human Rights Watch calls on the junta to stop coercive enlistment and allow unlawfully conscripted Rohingya to return.
Shayna Bauchner, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Asia, stated, “It’s appalling to see Myanmar’s military, which has committed atrocities against the Rohingya for decades while denying them citizenship, now forcing them to fight on its behalf.” The NGO documented 11 instances of forced recruitment through interviews with 25 Rohingya from various townships in Rakhine State and Bangladesh.
A Rohingya father of three, forcibly conscripted, shared with the BBC the agonizing ordeal Rohingya men face. “I was scared, but I had no choice,” said Mohammed, 31, residing in the Baw Du Pha camp near Rakhine’s capital, Sittwe.
Over 150,000 displaced Rohingya have endured a decade in IDP camps.
In the middle of February, the camp leader came to him late at night, Mohammed said, and told him he would have to do military training. “These are army orders,” he remembers him saying.
“If you refuse, they have threatened to harm your family.”
Men like Mohammed face a cruel irony: Rohingyas in Myanmar lack citizenship and endure discriminatory measures, including travel bans outside their communities.
Despite the 1982 law that denies Rohingya citizenship in Myanmar, theoretically exempting them from conscription, the military continues to target and exploit their vulnerable status. Both the military and the Arakan Army reportedly coerce Rohingya into fighting, depending on who controls their area.
The forced recruitment campaign has led to casualties. After training, 100 Rohingya men and boys from Sittwe camps were deployed to the front lines in Rathedaung.
Five died in combat, and ten were seriously injured, with one later succumbing to injuries, as reported by family members and camp leaders.
Military authorities promised families compensation of one million kyat ($476) and two sacks of rice but have yet to return the bodies of the deceased.
While 43 forced recruits later returned to the camps, the rest remain unaccounted for. “We still don’t know their whereabouts,” a camp leader said. “We don’t know if they’re still alive.”
“They tricked my son into the military,” said the mother of a man who was killed. She said, “They took him to do electrical work, then forced him into the training. Now he’s dead because he was sent to war.
They didn’t let us see the bodies. I couldn’t touch my son one last time. When he was taken away, his wife and I followed. He was held at a nearby cantonment for a few hours, and we were able to talk to him from outside the fence. Then they were brought to a car. That was the last talk. He was crying.”
In April, the UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, voiced serious concerns, noting that the Rohingya are “caught between two armed groups known for targeting them.”
The UN also cautioned that tensions between the Rohingya and Rakhine communities could escalate into broader intercommunal violence. Activists’ recent accounts suggest arson attacks by the Arakan Army on Rohingya villages and military-enforced relocations.
James Rodehaver, head of the Myanmar team at the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, highlighted that the military and Arakan Army frequently take opposing positions around Rohingya villages, endangering civilians caught in the crossfire.
“They suffer the consequences of the ensuing combat: airstrikes, forced displacement, village burnings, and the destruction of critical humanitarian infrastructure, especially medical facilities. Rohingya men have been arrested, disappeared, or, in some cases, used as human shields by the military.
Their mosques and schools have at times been occupied by fighters and used as locations from which to launch strikes, or damaged and destroyed during attacks,” said Rodehaver.
The Rohingya’s suffering extends beyond Myanmar’s borders. Activists report armed groups abducting young men from refugee camps in Bangladesh and transporting them to Myanmar, where they could be coerced into fighting. One man recounted how his 19-year-old nephew and two others were taken in early May and have since disappeared.
