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Sirachai Shin

Arunrugstichai

p h o t o j o u r n a l i s t

Young men flee Myanmar in panic after struggling military starts draft

Two cousins, 21 and 22 years old, who recently fled Myanmar together after it enacted military conscription glance at each other while seeking refuge at a safe house in Mahachai district, Samut Sakhon, Thailand.	Communities around the Tha Chin River at sunset in Mahachai district, just outside the Thai capital Bangkok, which is a key destination for refugees fleeing Myanmar, Samut Sakhon, Thailand.	Workers travel on a crowded minibus in Mahachai district, a hub of manufacturing and seafood industries with a large population of migrant workers and a major destination for refugees who fled the heated conflict in Myanmar, Samut Sakhon, Thailand.
A tattoo of Aung San Suu Kyi on the neck of a migrant from Myanmar at a safe house that provides shelter for groups of undocumented refugees, Bangkok, Thailand.	The rugged mountain range and river of Tenasserim Hills lie between Myanmar and Thailand, forming a geographical barrier with one of the border crossings located in Sangkhla Buri town in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. Sangkhla Buri is located in the far west of Thailand, bordering Myanmar, and has been the main route of travel between these two Southeast Asian countries since ancient times.	Soldiers of the Thai army patrol a rubber plantation along the Myanmar-Thailand border, Kanchanaburi, Thailand. Undocumented migrants reportedly often use the large plantations as cover when trying to evade Thai authorities.
A rubber plantation as seen through a night observation device carried by a Thai border patrol official waiting in the dark at a pop-up checkpoint on a road reported to be frequently used by migrant smugglers, Kanchanaburi, Thailand	Thai officials question motorbike riders in the dark at a pop-up checkpoint on an unlit dirt road near the Myanmar-Thailand border in Kanchanaburi, Thailand.	Passports of illegal migrants who are apprehended for crossing the Myanmar-Thailand border are being checked by Thai authorities, Kanchanaburi, Thailand.
Migrants are seen being taken by Thai soldiers on a pickup truck to Sangkhla Buri police station after being apprehended for illegally crossing into the country, Kanchanaburi, Thailand.	The last checkpoint in Sangkhla Buri town at Rantee Bridge, which the migrants must cross when traveling with vehicles to reach their destinations, Kanchanaburi, Thailand.	Thai soldiers ride on the back of a pickup truck during a patrol at twilight along the Myanmar-Thailand border in Kanchanaburi, Thailand.

Since the announcement of the compulsory conscription law in February, aiming for 60,000 soldiers by Myanmar's military junta after facing repeated battlefield losses, tens of thousands, especially young people from Myanmar, have flocked across the border to Thailand, where many have become undocumented refugees from this mass exodus.

Read on The Washington Post

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