Dozens detained at Pyay checkpoint; some forcibly recruited by regime

By Admin 01 Jul 2025

DMG Newsroom

1 July 2025, Pyay, Bago Region

Some among dozens of Arakanese people from Taungup Township, Arakan State, have reportedly been sent to a military training school after being detained at a junta security checkpoint at an entrance to Pyay, Bago Region.

About 50 Arakanese people were arrested at the Nawaday security checkpoint in Pyay on June 25 and 27 while attempting to travel to Yangon from Taungup.

Of the detainees, only four have been released. Some were sent to a military training school and the remaining are being held at the 959th military regiment in Pyay. The number of conscripts is not yet known.

"Most of those arrested were in their 20s and 30s. Four of them were released after paying bribes to the military officers," a source close to the family of a detainee told DMG. "Some detained Arakanese men are held at the military regiment while some were reportedly sent to a military training school in Kayin [Karen] State. I don't know exactly the number of Arakanese people being conscripted."

An elderly man and three women who were released were each reported to have paid K5 million to secure their release.

The arrestees are from villages such as Tanhlwe Ywama, Tanhlwe Chaung, Letpankyun and Thetkelkyun in Taungup Township, and they were arrested while traveling to Yangon to work and study.

They reportedly arranged to travel to Yangon with the help of human traffickers through the jungle, paying up to 1.8 million kyats per person in brokerage fees.

"People who want to go to Yangon pay human traffickers to go there," said a local woman in Taungup. "Human traffickers are responsible for the safety of those who want to go to mainland Myanmar, but if something happens along the way, they rarely take responsibility or accountability. If people who go to Yangon are arrested or killed on the way, it is their own fate."

The detained Arakanese people were allegedly transported by three human traffickers in Taungup. A male human smuggler recruited people in Arakan State who were traveling to mainland Myanmar, took them through a forest route, and then delivered them to two female human traffickers living in Pyay Township.

"Human traffickers first presented lists to regime officials of how many people were coming. They [the 50 Arakanese people] were arrested when they reached the junta security checkpoint near Pyay. Those who could bribe regime officials were released, but those who could not were forcibly conscripted into the military," a source explained. "A human trafficker who was transporting people from Arakan State to Yangon created a situation where the people he was transporting were arrested before they reached two human smugglers in Pyay."

Locals who leave Arakan State often face arrest, extortion, and conscription at junta security checkpoints on the border between mainland Myanmar and Arakan State.

The United League of Arakan/Arakan Army (ULA/AA), which now controls most of the territory in Arakan State, issued a statement on May 22 prohibiting young men eligible for military service from leaving Arakan State for the duration of the emergency caused by the latest fighting between AA and regime forces.

The ULA/AA has also prohibited those who transport displaced people from Arakan State by land or water for a fee, and said that those who do not comply will be prosecuted under existing laws.