Women join the battle on Myanmar's front lines

They fly combat drones, work as medics in units set up to end junta's rule SHAN STATE, Myanmar - An 18-yearold recruit in one of Myanmar's pro-democracy fighting units prepares to launch a drone strike on junta troops, driven by anger and her mother's call for revolution.

Moe Moe is one of hundreds of women training, living and fighting alongside men in the People's Defence Forces (PDF), upending gender norms in the mostly Buddhist country.

She grew up during a rare period of democracy in Myanmar and, after the military ended it with a 2021 coup, joined one of the dozens of PDF units that formed to end the junta's rule.

Moe Moe initially worked with a group organising protests against the military but, after months of the junta's deadly crackdown, decided to become a fighter.

"I can't stand the military's injustice," she said after carrying out the drone strike in Shan state, which neighbours the more populous Mandalay region.

"They killed innocent civilians.

The main reason I joined was because of my anger." Moe Moe, wearing the group's camouflage fatigues and its red peacock badge stitched onto her arm, said she had friends in the Mandalay PDF who invited her to fight with them.

"I was born in Mandalay. I'm a Mandalay girl. So, I joined Mandalay PDF," she said.