TANINTHARYI DIVISION – According to Kawthaung residents, those who were sent back to Myanmar after being punished for various reasons in Thailand are being forcibly recruited by the Junta Council as soldiers.
Residents said that those who were released on July 30th and August 7th at the detention camp in Ranong District, Thailand, were taken as recruits.
“Among those who were sent back from Thailand, the non-locals and those who could not pay ransom money for themselves were taken by the army to serve in the military,” said a Kawthaung resident who knows about the process.
The 152 Myanmar nationals were released by Department of Immigration in Ranong District on July 30 from the detention center and the Thai authorities brought them to Kawthaung. More than 30 young men were taken by the junta council to the Light Infantry Battalion (262) based in Kawthaung, according to sources close to the army.
Similarly, on August 7th, the Thai authorities released 126 Burmese citizens who were on parole, and the Kawthaung township Junta Council on the Myanmar side took almost all of them to the LIB 262 for recruitment, according to Kawthaung-based brokers.
“The repatriates sent back were taken by the terrorist army as new soldiers,” said a Kawthaung resident who witnessed it.
Among those recruited as new soldiers, they are released if they can prove that they are Kawthaung residents, and non-locals are often released if they can pay the amount of money demanded by the junta council.
Now in 2024, Myanmar nationals who have served their sentence from the detention center in Ranong Immigration, Thailand, have been sent back in batches by the Thai authorities. There were 116 in January, 197 in February, 134 in March, 120 people in June, 152 people on July 30th, and 126 people on August 7th, according to the social media page of Ranong District Immigration Office.
