YANGON, Myanmar — Despite a crippling fuel shortage that has paralyzed much of the commercial capital, Myanmar’s military junta has intensified its campaign of forced conscription, with monitoring groups reporting a significant spike in “street abductions” across Yangon in March.
The Rangoon Scout Network (RSN), a local monitoring group, documented the detention of 99 individuals across 14 townships in Yangon during the month of March 2026. Of these, 48 people were reportedly snatched directly from the streets or while sitting at roadside tea shops.
The arrests come at a time when Yangon’s residents are already enduring hours-long queues for basic fuel rations. However, the energy crisis has not deterred security forces. “Even as fuel scarcity persists, the military continued to round up people on the streets,” a spokesperson for RSN told MPA. “The frequency of these abductions was highest in the first two weeks of March, slightly easing only after the start of Military Training Batch No. 23 on March 23.”
According to RSN, out of the 99 detained last month, only 42 have been released. At least 14 were confirmed to have been sent directly to military training schools or prisons, while the whereabouts and safety of the remaining 43 individuals remain unknown.
Witnesses and local monitors describe a pattern of arbitrary arrests carried out primarily in the evenings and at night. The operations are often conducted by roving patrols consisting of soldiers, police officers, and pro-junta Pyusawthii militia members, frequently operating in plainclothes to avoid detection.
“They target quiet or isolated areas,” the RSN spokesperson added. “They simply pull up and take whoever is there. It doesn’t matter if they are walking home or just sitting by the road.”
The surge in forced recruitment in March marks a sharp increase from February, when RSN documented 58 arbitrary arrests in the city. The military’s desperate push for manpower follows significant losses on several fronts against resistance forces, prompting the enforcement of a national conscription law earlier this year.
As the sham government under General Min Aung Hlaing seeks to replenish its ranks, the youth of Yangon are being forced into a life of hiding. For many, the risk of stepping outside for work or basic necessities now carries the dual threat of an economic collapse and the very real possibility of being forced onto the frontlines of a war they did not choose.
