Tens of thousands of civilians in Myanmar have taken up arms against the military since it staged a coup more than four years ago. Many have joined existing armed groups; others have started new rebel armies.
Since 2023, resistance forces have scored a series of major victories and taken tens of thousands of prisoners. The captured include many high-ranking officers and soldiers’ relatives who were living on military bases overrun by rebel armies. Most of the family members have been released.
The rebels now hold about 15,000 prisoners of war, according to People’s Goal, a nonprofit that assists defectors from the army and is tracking junta soldiers captured by the rebels.
How do the rebels treat prisoners of war?
Housing, feeding and guarding large numbers of captured soldiers presents a challenge for the resistance, which is made up of numerous armed groups with limited resources.
Many rebel armies operate makeshift prison camps scattered throughout rebel territory. Some hold a few dozen prisoners, others hundreds. Often, prisoners must help grow food and cook for themselves.
Rebel commanders say they abide by the Geneva Convention in the treatment of prisoners of war. While cases of brutality have been documented, some commanders go out of their way to give captives a decent life.
At a prison camp in Kayin State, one organized a wedding for a prisoner and another prisoner’s daughter, who had chosen to remain in the camp. The commander also allowed prisoners’ children to attend the local school.
What about the junta?
Many fighters on both sides expect to be killed if they are captured. But analysts and former junta soldiers say that executions of prisoners by the military are far more common.
The rebel Pa-O National Liberation Army recently released a video showing a junta soldier shooting prisoners who were standing on a dirt road with their hands tied.
Former Army Maj. Naung Yoe, 42, who defected to the rebels’ side and is now a member of People’s Goal’s executive board, said most low-ranking resistance fighters captured by the military are tortured and killed.
The junta keeps few captives and does not operate prisoner of war camps, he said. Rebels not executed on the battlefield are taken to interrogation centers. Many do not survive questioning.
“Whoever is captured by the junta, we see them as dead people,” said Thinzar Shunlei Yi, an activist and People’s Goal board member. “We never hear from them anymore.”
Some are used as human shields, particularly in remote areas, defectors say. The junta has a long history of forcing captives — often civilians rounded up in remote villages — to march ahead of its soldiers through minefields or into battle.
The military regime does not publicly disclose how many rebel prisoners of war it is holding. Its spokesman, Gen. Zaw Min Tun, declined to answer questions on its treatment of captured fighters.
Do the rebels also execute captives?
Though most rebel leaders prohibit the killing of captives, cases of battlefield executions by rebel forces have been documented.
Ms. Thinzar Shunlei Yi estimates that rebel fighters have killed hundreds of captured soldiers, often in revenge for crimes they believe the soldiers committed.
The Arakan Army, which operates in Rakhine State and has won many battlefield victories, holds about 3,000 prisoners of war. But earlier this year — after Fortify Rights, a rights group, reported on a gruesome leaked video — the Arakan Army admitted that its soldiers had beheaded two captured junta soldiers in early 2024.
A spokesman for the group said the fighters had acted out of anger, because the captives had been accused of killing relatives of the fighters. The soldiers were punished, he said, without giving specifics.
Another danger for junta soldiers who surrender is the military itself.
Former Army Cpl. Ye Lin Aung, 34, said that hours after he and his squad surrendered to the Karen National Liberation Army in 2022, the military bombed their position.
“Their main goal was to kill us,” he said. “The Myanmar military doesn’t really care when soldiers die, but they do worry when weapons are lost.”
Are any P.O.W.s freed?
Not every rebel army wants to run prison camps.
The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, which captured the city of Lashio in 2024 only to hand it back to the junta under pressure from China, also captured thousands of prisoners during the fighting, including three generals.
Rather than keep them, the rebel army freed its captives. It had done the same with thousands of other prisoners captured the year before.
But other rebel groups, including the Chin Brotherhood, want to prevent captured soldiers from returning to battle.
The brotherhood, an alliance of ethnic armed groups in Chin State, holds about 600 prisoners, who work growing vegetables and eat the same food as rebel soldiers, said Salai William Chin, its general secretary.
“We do not release P.O.W.s because if we do, the military will send them back to fight,” he said. “By keeping them, we make sure the enemy forces do not grow stronger.”
Richard C. Paddock has worked as a foreign correspondent in 50 countries on five continents with postings in Moscow, Jakarta, Singapore and Bangkok. He has spent nearly a dozen years reporting on Southeast Asia, which he has covered since 2016 as a contributor to The Times.
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