'My conscripted husband is now dead': How Myanmar's war is killing civilians

The last time Chaw Su saw her husband was in March, when he was forcibly conscripted to fight for the army in Myanmar's civil war.

Four months later, she found out he had been killed at the frontline.

"We were always poor and struggled," she says. "But life was much more bearable with him."

The 25-year-old widow, who had depended on her husband as the breadwinner, now has three young children to care for.

*Names have been changed to protect the sources' identities.

In February, Myanmar’s military regime, known as the junta, announced compulsory conscription, meaning all men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 would be forced to serve for up to two years.

Since launching the 2021 coup that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi's democratically-elected government, the junta has faced an uprising on multiple fronts - including from volunteer People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) and ethnic armed groups. That uprising has since escalated into a full-blown civil war.

Last year marked a turn of the tide, as the junta saw a fresh wave of attacks from insurgents that have since pushed the military government to breaking point. As a result, up to two-thirds of the country, which has had decades of military rule and repression, fell under the control of resistance groups.

The increasingly embattled junta responded in part by pushing forward with mandatory conscription, despite warnings from experts that it could exacerbate the nation’s civil conflict. The first training began in April.

Many young Burmese have taken drastic measures to resist the conscription order.

Kan Htoo Lwin, a 20-year-old from Myannmar's commercial hub, Yangon, was conscripted and trained for three months along with 30 others.

He says the training was gruelling and they were threatened that if anyone tried to escape, their homes would be burned.

"After the training, I hated the army even more," he says.

During a journey to the frontline in the eastern part of the country, Kan Htoo saw a chance to escape with two others when their convoy stopped halfway.

"We ran once it got dark, while they were busy with security checks. We didn’t stop until nightfall," he recalls. "At some point we were exhausted and stopped to rest. We took turns sleeping and keeping watch."

At dawn, the three young men hitched a ride from a truck driver and made it to Aung Ban, a township in the southern Shan state. Here, Kan Htoo joined a PDF, one of the many resistance groups that have been growing as more young people, disillusioned with the military junta, take up arms.

The other two men are currently in hiding, Kan Htoo says. For safety reasons, he doesn’t want to reveal what they are doing now.