Dozens missing as young Rohingya press-ganged into both sides of Myanmar war

Men are being abducted by the junta and rebels to fight. Shweta Sharma reports from Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh

- Shweta Sharma

For 13-year-old Mohammed Rias, it was the day of exams, a day to put all that he had learned to the test. But instead of settling down in a classroom, he found himself fleeing his home,dodging a hail of bullets to escape forced conscription into a war that has persecuted his community for years.

Mohammed is a Rohingya who, until recently, was living in the Buthidaung township in Rakhine State, western Myanmar. For years, his community has been targeted by the junta that overthrew and imprisoned the democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021.

Now the military – and the rebels they are fighting who want independence – are preying on the Rohingya again by forcing them to fight as foot soldiers. Recalling unspeakable horrors that no teenager should have to live through, Mohammed describes how his family of seven made a run for their lives in December 2024.

“It started with the military junta dragging out young men from their homes for forcible conscription into the army to fight rebels,” he tells The Independent. “Everything was calm before that. But the recruitment drive flamed the fighting in the village.”

Mohammed describes how military leaders in Myanmar would identify young, tall, and fit men and forcibly enlist them, which enraged the rebel Arakan army. In retaliation, the rebels launched attacks on villages, sometimes using drone strikes that killed hundreds.

“The day I left, I was supposed to take my exams. As we fled, the rebels began firing bullets and launching drones. Many were swept away by the river, and we had to walk over dead bodies to escape. We are being slaughtered. They [military and Arakan army] hate us,” he says.