Myanmar’s Rohingya youths abducted and forced to fight as ‘human shields’ by junta and insurgents

But before the men – who reportedly were members of an armed Rohingya insurgent group called Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) – could disappear from the camp with their captives, they were surrounded by scores of refugees who overpowered them.

Police in charge of the camp asked the refugees to release the intruders. When their request was denied amid protests against forced conscription, several officers fired pellets, injuring more than two dozen refugees including children.

The May 20 incident at Kutupalong Rohingya refugee camp in which more than 1,000 refugees, mostly women, were involved, was the first public protest in Bangladesh against the abduction and forced conscription of Rohingya youths.

In the past three months, several hundred Rohingya men and teenage boys have been abducted from the refugee camps in Bangladesh and sent across to Myanmar, according to rights groups and other Rohingya sources.

Community leaders and families of the forced conscripts told This Week in Asia that members of armed Rohingya insurgent groups operating in refugee camps in Bangladesh were sending the Rohingya youths across the border for conscription by Myanmar’s military.

Htway Lwin, a Cox’s Bazar-based Rohingya community leader and human rights defender, told This Week in Asia that Rohingya are being forcibly recruited by Myanmar’s military as well as its rival rebel group Arakan Army (AA).

“The Myanmar military is using the Rohingya conscripts as human shields on the front lines in the war against the AA. As the military deploys Rohingya against the AA, the rebel group is also forcibly recruiting Rohingya individuals to use them as human shields,” said Lwin, who estimated 750 to 1,000 Rohingya men and boys have been supplied from