Mizzima
Two women reportedly died in a crush outside the passport issuing office in Aungmyaythazan Township, Mandalay on 19 February at 2:30 am.
Thousands of people are rushing to leave the country to escape a junta military conscription law.
Two women, Khin Myo Aye, 52, and Khine Wai, 39, died early Monday after hundreds of people surged to get in line at the passport office in Myanmar’s second city, Mandalay.
“There was a ditch near the crowd. They fell into the ditch and died from a lack of oxygen,” the rescue officer told AFP, requesting anonymity for security reasons. Another woman was slightly injured, the officer said, adding that all three had been selling tokens assigning numbers in the queue.
While there were only a few applicants for passports during the previous civilian government’s tenure at the Passport Issuing Office located on 12th Street near Kuthodaw Pagoda in Aungmyaythazan Township, Mandalay, the number of applicants surged following the 2021 coup.
This influx led to queues forming even in the middle of the night, worsened by the limited capacity for issuing passports. However, the recent 10 February announcement by the military junta that young people will be subject to military conscription, has seen the number of people applying spike.
The junta said it would enforce a law allowing it to call up all men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 to serve in the military for at least two years. The law was written by a previous junta but never used, and it remains unclear how it will be enforced. No details have been given about how those called up would be expected to serve, but many young people are not keen to wait and find out.
An official from the Nandawshay Social Relief Team said, “The crowd collapsed suddenly during a commotion. Our team promptly responded for rescue operations. All three women were transported to the hospital. According to the initial medical examination, two of them succumbed to suffocation.”
Despite the Passport Issuing Office only accepting 200 applicants per day, approximately 10,000 people were reportedly queuing up. Among them, there are reports of place-sellers, who reserve spots to later sell them to others, as well as brokers.
Local media also reported the deaths.
Last week local media images showed hundreds of people queueing outside the passport office in Mandalay.
In commercial hub Yangon thousands of young men and women queued outside the Thai embassy seeking visas to get out of Myanmar last week.
Around 13 million people will be eligible to be called up, a junta spokesman said last week, though the military only has capacity to train 50,000 a year.
The junta has previously said it is taking measures to arm pro-military militias as it battles opponents across the country – both anti-coup People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) and more long-standing ethnic minority armed groups.
Additional reporting by AFP
