After a string of humiliating defeats, the army has turned to press-ganging young men into frontline duty – leaving distraught families unaware of their fate

Than Htun, 29, was still in bed when the men came to his home in Yangon to take him away. “He couldn’t prepare anything. They just ordered him to bring his national identity card, a copy of his census registration and two sets of clothes,” recalled his sister, Khin May.

The group of soldiers and local officials were forcibly conscripting Than Htun into Myanmar’s military. He would be made to fight for the country’s widely loathed junta in its fierce war against pro-democracy fighters and ethnic armed groups.