Rohingyas living in the Rakhine State of Myanmar are being forcibly conscripted into the ruling military junta’s army according to the BBC – an army that not only doesn’t recognize their right to live in Myanmar, but has also committed what the UN called “textbook ethnic cleansing” against Rohingyas nearly seven years ago.

Faced with heavy losses, the embattled junta is using forced military service to fill its ranks in its ongoing civil war.

Forced to fight for a regime that wants them dead

In 2012, headlines were filled with accounts of the tens of thousands of Rohingyas who were being driven out of their communities in Myanmar and forced to live in squalid refugee camps. Then, five years later, the army launched a brutal campaign killing and raping thousands of Rohingyas and burning their villages, creating a humanitarian crisis as hundreds of thousands fled to neighboring Bangladesh seeking safety.

Today, the Rohingyas that remain in Myanmar are still denied citizenship and are subjected to multiple types of discriminatory restrictions. But that hasn’t deterred the embattled military from entering the camps where Rohingyas have been forced to live since 2012, and forcibly conscripting the men who live there.

Mohammed, a 31-year-old Rohingya man with three young children said:

“I was frightened, but I had to go, the camp leader said, ‘If you refuse, they threatened to harm your family’.”

The BBC reports that at least 100 Rohingyas have been forcibly conscripted and that several Rohingyas confirmed army officers have been going around the camps and ordering the younger men to report for military training.

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