‘Why should I kill our own?’: Thousands of soldiers surrender as Myanmar junta shaken by rebel advances

A defector from the Myanmar army. Some deserted for moral or political reasons, while others surrendered to the rebels’ superior forces. Many soldiers said they had wanted to leave for a long time, but had no chance to escape, with recruits being guarded in military bases. Photograph: Aung Naing Soe/The Guardian

One night last August, as the monsoon rains poured, Wunna Kyaw and some fellow soldiers walked away from their military base in Myanmar. It was hours before they were due to be deployed to an area gripped by intense fighting, where the military was struggling to control attacks by armed pro-democracy groups.

“I believed I would die if I did not defect,” says Wunna Kyaw. As the senior officers and commander slept, they crept away from their compound in Kayin, also known as Karen state. It was an act punishable by at least seven years in prison and, potentially, the death penalty.