End Abduction, Forced Conscription Of Rohingya Civilians

New investigation finds Myanmar junta forcibly conscripting abducted Rohingya refugees

The Myanmar junta’s illegal forced-conscription campaign in Rakhine State and elsewhere in the country must end, and Rohingya armed groups operational in Bangladesh should prevent the abduction of Rohingya refugees, said Fortify Rights today. A new investigation by Fortify Rights finds that Rohingya armed groups abducted Rohingya refugees from refugee camps in Bangladesh, and then the abductees were transported to Myanmar and forced to join the Myanmar junta’s military. These acts may violate the laws of war and amount to human trafficking.

“Rohingya survivors of the ongoing genocide committed by the Myanmar military are now being forced to join the ranks of the very actors responsible for committing atrocities against them,” said Ejaz Min Khant, Human Rights Associate at Fortify Rights. “The abduction and forced conscription of Rohingya may amount to human trafficking and should be urgently addressed.”

Between February and July 2024, Fortify Rights interviewed 23 Rohingya people, including six Rohingya conscripted by the Myanmar military and four Rohingya refugees abducted from camps in Bangladesh and transferred to Myanmar and into the custody of the Myanmar military junta. Fortify Rights also spoke with family members of forcibly conscripted individuals and eyewitnesses to forced conscriptions, two senior leaders of the Rohingya Solidary Organization (RSO) armed group, and a Bangladesh-based humanitarian worker.

Fortify Rights analyzed videos and photographs that appear to show Rohingya engaging in military exercises within a military compound in Myanmar. Fortify Rights also analyzed five documents issued by the Myanmar junta to implement the illegal conscriptions — including directives to township administration officials, registration forms, notice letters, and identity cards.

“As soon as I left the house, [the Myanmar junta soldiers] pointed guns at me,” a 21-year-old Rohingya man from Ward-5 in Rakhine State’s Buthidaung Township told Fortify Rights. “The [Myanmar] military was patrolling at every junction. … Eight military soldiers came to my house. They all had guns. They were wearing green uniforms.”

The Myanmar junta abducted the man on February 25, 2024, shortly after it announced its plan to require men between the ages of 18 and 35 and women between the ages of 18 and 27 to perform mandatory military service. The soldiers took the man to the Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 535 military base located in Nga Kyi Dauk village, located approximately six miles from the man’s home. He then underwent military training for 10 days before escaping. Describing the training, he said: “We were trained on holding a gun, crawling, dismantling and fixing guns, and firing a gun. We were taught how to march with a gun in a fight.”

The Myanmar junta abducted another 24-year-old Rohingya man from Ward-5 in Buthidaung Township on the same day. He similarly told Fortify Rights how the soldiers forced him to attend military training at the LIB 535 base. He said: “I didn’t want to hold a gun…. I had to do the training [on] holding a gun and firing guns.”

Forced conscription into the Myanmar military is reportedly continuing throughout the country. Although the junta provided April 2024 as the start date of the program, it began abducting and forcing Rohingya civilians to undergo military training exercises shortly after the February 2024 announcement.

A 38-year-old Rohingya village leader from Buthidaung Township told Fortify Rights about a meeting organized at the Military Tactical Command Headquarters in Rakhine State’s Buthidaung Township in February 2024. He said: “The lieutenant captain told us [in the meeting] that we Rohingya must serve in the military for the safety of our villages. … The military was pressuring us a lot to give a list of people [from our village]. As young men from our village refused, the military threatened us.”

Military Tactical Command Headquarters in Rakhine State’s Buthidaung Township reportedly includes LIB 233, 234, and 263.

“I was abducted on March 1, [2024],” a 17-year-old Rohingya refugee youth told Fortify Rights, describing how armed men, whom he believed were part of a Rohingya militant group, forcibly took him from a refugee camp in Bangladesh and transported him to Myanmar. He said:

There were around seven people who came to a café where I was drinking tea. They pointed a gun at me, blindfolded and tied my arms and legs with a rope, then abducted me from there. Later, I was taken to Myanmar… Then I was taken to the Myo Thu Gyi BGP [Border Guard Police] Headquarters [in Maungdaw Township, Rakhine State].

The youth later fled from the training camp and returned to Bangladesh, where he is now in hiding.

Another Rohingya man told Fortify Rights how nine Rohingya men believed to be part of a Rohingya militant group abducted him along with other refugees in Bangladesh on May 3, 2024. He said:

I was caught while I was at the market around 3:30 p.m. … Eleven people, including myself [were abducted]. … We were told that there was a meeting after the Juma prayer [approximately 2 p.m.]. … Then, we were taken to the bus and brought to the jetty in Teknaf [on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border] at 5 p.m. We were sent to Myanmar around 11:30 p.m.

Describing how the Myanmar military detained the group and forced them to undergo military training, the man said:

We were taken from the boat and kept at the Border Guard Police Headquarters, also known as Na Kha Ka 5, in Myo Thu Gyi [village] in Maungdaw [Township]. ... I had been in detention for seven days. … During the training, [the Myanmar military] beat us badly with a wooden stick if any of us couldn’t do the training properly.

The man later escaped the military compound and fled back to Bangladesh.

A 25-year-old Rohingya man told Fortify Rights how a group of 10 to 15 men detained him, extorted money from him, and threatened to send him to Myanmar. He said:

[The militants] caught me on May 6, [2024] at 10:30 a.m. and told me that the [group leader] in-charge [of a particular area of the refugee camp] called me [to a location]. They told me, “You have to go to Myanmar; otherwise, you have to give us 100,000 Bangladeshi Taka [approximately US$850].” … I couldn’t give them the amount they demanded. They hit me two or three times. I eventually gave them 100,000 Bangladeshi Taka [approximately US$850].

The group released the man one day after receiving the payment of US$850 from his family in the camps.

According to an internal memo by a humanitarian coordination group operating in Bangladesh, Rohingya armed groups in Bangladesh forcibly recruited approximately more than 1,700 Rohingya refugees from March to May 2024.

In May and June 2024, Fortify Rights spoke with two senior leaders of RSO who denied their group’s involvement in forced recruitment. One of the men told Fortify Rights: “All of our recruitment is based on volunteering and full consent. We do not conduct mass recruitment.” The leaders also denied the group’s possible involvement in the Myanmar junta’s illegal forced conscription program. One leader said: “It is totally false [that] we would work with the military. We have been fighting them. Why would we join them now?”

“If RSO is responsible for crimes, we will take accountability,” one senior leader told Fortify Rights. “We will punish our members if anyone does killing, forced recruitment, or abuses.”

Fortify Rights was unable to speak with other Rohingya armed groups operational in Bangladesh and Myanmar, including the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and Arakan Rohingya Army, about the abductions and forced conscription.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has provided authoritative guidance on military conscription, stating that conscription laws must be “justified” in the overall context of the State’s situation, which is defined as “need[ing] to fulfill certain criteria firstly it must be prescribed by law, secondly implemented in a way that is not arbitrary or discriminatory, thirdly the functions and discipline of the recruits must be based on military needs and plans, and finally be challengeable in a court of law.”

The UN. Commission on Human Rights has also held that “[t]he forced conscription, by any party, of internally displaced persons and of refugees in disregard of their protected status” is “prohibited in all circumstances.”

The abduction of Rohingya, including refugees in Bangladesh and civilians in Myanmar, may also constitute human trafficking, said Fortify Rights. Trafficking in persons is defined under Article 3(a) of the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, also known as the Palermo Protocol, as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability.”

Last month, the U.S. State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report re-designated Myanmar as a Tier-3 country–the poorest ranking — for its failure to meet minimum standards to combat trafficking. The report notes that Myanmar’s junta has “forcibly recruited, through abduction, Rohingya adults and children to serve in combat and support roles during military operations against EAOs [ethnic armed organizations] and resistance forces.”

On February 10, 2024, the Myanmar junta announced that it would start recruiting under the “People’s Military Service Law” — an illegal program requiring men between the ages of 18 and 35 and women between the ages 18 and 27 to perform mandatory military service. Three days after the announcement, the National Unity Government of Myanmar — a body representing Myanmar’s democratically elected leaders–published a statement condemning the program and rightfully asserting that it is “unlawful and has no legal effect. The public is not required to comply with it. The terrorist military junta is an illegal organization with no legal authority.”

Bangladesh hosts more than one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. In 2016 and 2017, the Myanmar Army led a genocidal campaign of massacres, mass rape, and mass arson, forcibly deporting more than 800,000 Rohingya men, women, and children to Bangladesh. Since the assassination of Mohib Ullah — a prominent Rohingya human rights defender — in 2021, Fortify Rights documented how Rohingya militant and criminal groups have killed, abducted, tortured, threatened, and harassed Rohingya refugees. Documenting cases of forced conscription in the Bangladesh refugee camps poses severe security challenges.

“The Bangladesh authorities need to protect Rohingya refugees from forced conscription in the camps where they are supposed to be safe,” said Ejaz Min Khant of Fortify Rights. “The Myanmar junta must immediately end these abuses. Protecting the rights and safety of the Rohingya in Rakhine State and Bangladesh camps should be a global priority.”

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