People gather outside the embassy of Thailand to get visas in Yangon on February 16.//AFP
More than 1,000 people lined up at the Thai embassy in Yangon on Friday as young people sought to leave Myanmar after the junta said it would impose military service.
The military said last weekend it would enforce a law allowing it to call up all men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 to serve for at least two years, as it struggles to quell opposition to its 2021 coup.
The junta faces widespread armed opposition to its rule three years after seizing power from an elected civilian government and recently suffered a series of stunning losses to an armed alliance of ethnic minority groups.
The Thai embassy in Yangon has been swamped with young men and women seeking visas to get out of Myanmar since the announcement last Saturday that the “People’s Military Service Law” would be brought…
