Myanmar junta says 93 child soldiers already released, as it counters UN criticism

Yahoo

2 days ago

(Corrects headline to make clear criticism did not spur release, adds paragraph 4 to show timing of release was unclear)
By Naw Betty Han and Shoon Naing
(Reuters) -Myanmar's ruling junta said on Friday it had already discharged 93 minors from military service, countering a United Nations report last month that accused it and allies of recruiting more than 400 children, many in combat roles.
In a rare admission published in its mouthpiece newspaper, the junta said it conducted a verification process last year that resulted in the discharge of 93 verified minors, who were also provided with financial assistance.
"To date, only 18 suspected minor cases remain pending verification," a government-run committee said in a statement published in the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper.
It is unclear when the 93 minors were released.
Myanmar's military and the armed groups affiliated to it last year recruited 467 boys and 15 girls, including over 370 children used in combat roles, the UN Secretary-General's report on Children and Armed Conflict said.
Anti-junta groups had also recruited children, the report said, although their number was far lower than that of the military.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since a 2021 coup that unseated an elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, causing widespread protests that morphed into a nationwide armed uprising against the powerful military.
Established ethnic armies and new armed groups formed in the wake of the coup have gained control over much of Myanmar's borderlands, hemming the junta largely into the country's central plains.
The struggling junta in 2024 activated a mandatory military service law, conscripting young people to replenish its depleted ranks after months of relentless fighting forced it to cede swathes of territory.
Nearly 3.5 million people were internally displaced in the war-torn country, with children accounting for over 33% of that population in 2024, according to UNICEF.
The largest proportion of child recruitment appears to have taken place in western Rakhine state, home to the minority Muslim Rohingya community, where the Myanmar military - along with two allies fighting there - enlisted 300 minors, according to the UN report.
Reuters reported last year that children as young as 13 were fighting on the frontlines in Rakhine state, citing a U.N. official and two Rohingya fighters.
More than a million Rohingya driven out of Myanmar remain confined in refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh, where militant recruitment and violence surged last year.