Police in Australia have launched a manhunt for former soap opera star Orpheus Pledger after he failed to appear in court to face charges of assault.

Pledger, 30, was due to appear at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday accused of assaulting a woman, Sky News Australia said.

The actor had been granted bail on Tuesday for a court-ordered hospital assessment and had been ordered to return to court the following day, but didn’t show up.

On Wednesday Victoria Police issued a warrant for his arrest and asked the public to help find him.

The force said in a statement he was wanted over an “assault-related matter” and hoped “someone may be able to provide information on his current whereabouts”.

Described as “approximately 170cm [5ft, 6in] tall with brown hair and tanned complexion”, police said he was known to frequent the north Melbourne suburb of Northcote and surrounding areas.

Pledger’s manager, Craig McMahon told the Sydney Morning Herald he had not been in contact with his client this week but that he had been shocked by the assault allegations.

Mr McMahon told the paper his client had suffered from mental health issues for a long time.

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Pledger starred in Neighbours, another Australian soap, in 2011 before joining the cast of Home and Away in 2016 where he played Mason Morgan for three years.

Earlier in his career, he appeared in other TV shows, Silversun and CrashBurn.

Mae Tao clinic in Mae Sot, a frontier town along the border with Myanmar, is a harrowing window into a civil war that has suddenly escalated.

In the searing heat of early morning, the wards are packed full of patients, some with catastrophic injuries.

We walk into a room full of amputees, many recently injured by airstrikes and landmines.

Lying on a bed with his stomach held together by a bandage, we meet Maung Maung.

His voice is incredibly strained, and he can hardly move. He’s just lost his two daughters. One was two years old, the other 14.

“They were hiding in a school. I thought it would be safe. After the bomb, I saw the body of one of my daughters ripped apart,” he tells us.

Many here say they’re too terrified to return to their home country and that fighting is now a daily threat.

For decades, Dr Cynthia Maung, founder of the clinic in Thailand, has seen the graphic side effects of the world’s longest-running civil war, a brutal clash between Myanmar‘s military and a mix of pro-democracy groups and local ethnic rebel armies.

In recent weeks though, she says the number of patients coming to her almost doubled to 500 a day.

“This is the worst in my time in 35 years here. This is the worst situation,” says Dr Maung.

As we talk, there are patients of all ages. She is their great hope, but she’s juggling increasingly complex and desperate cases.

There’s recently been a sharp increase in those coming here wounded by bombs.

The embattled ruling junta has increasingly been carrying out airstrikes in the face of big losses. The resistance now controls more than half of Myanmar’s territory.

One of the most symbolic defeats came two weeks ago in Myawaddy. The small town has an outsized economic role, known as the so-called “gateway to Thailand”.

It has long been a focal point for many of the ethnic and pro-democracy groups, but rarely looked vulnerable.

Yet two weeks ago, rebel forces led by the Karen ethnic army made their move, stunning observers by taking the town.

Social media videos show the military seemingly launching an operation to retake it – but their convoy is ambushed, resistance fighters taking over their vehicles and sending them fleeing.

At the top of a hill on the Thai side of the border, the army is watching everything closely. There’s a nervousness and tension that hasn’t been there since the coup in 2021.

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Sub-Lieutenant Chuchat Farangtong tells me: “I felt the resistance groups were well prepared.

“There were signs before they attacked. My unit could see their manpower and their weapons. And there were civilians waiting along the river getting ready to cross over.”

Now it seems control of the town could be shifting once again, with video emerging on Tuesday of a Junta soldier from 275th Battalion in Myawaddy raising their flag. Reports say fighters of the KNA faction, a Border Guard Force, allowed them through to re-establish control. We may well see more clashes ahead.

In the past few days alone, thousands have fled the fighting in Myanmar, many running away from conscription driven by a military desperately in need of more men.

Among them is 19-year-old Nyi Nyi, now in hiding in Thailand after secretly crossing the border – a terrifying journey that took three days.

“When I was fleeing, most of my friends got arrested by the military,” he says.

“They were interrogated and tortured. They trained them for just three weeks and then sent them to the frontline.”

He claims opponents are being brutally attacked by a military desperate to cling to power: “They starve opponents, put them in stress positions and beat them until they bleed from their ears.”

We asked the ruling junta about his allegations. They did not respond to our request for comment.

Myanmar’s military government has been losing ground in its borderlands for months, as pro-democracy militias and ethnic armed groups have launched a series of successful offensives.

That’s been made possible by previously disparate groups coming together.

It is unlikely the ruling military government is at risk of being overthrown imminently, but we haven’t seen a shift like this for years.

That’s a challenge for neighbouring countries trying to navigate their relationship with Myanmar, the creeping violence on the border areas and the exodus of Myanmar’s people.

We went on patrol with the Thai police who seem to be trying to play the role of protector and enforcer, helping some find refuge and detaining others.

They tell us they’ve arrested up to 30 people trying to cross illegally into Thailand every day.

“I’m worried that the bullets are flying to the Thai side,” Lieutenant Manop Sivadumrong says.

“So, we’ve deployed border police and provincial police along the border to prevent illegal migrants and to help the Myanmar people on both sides in case they are injured.”

It is a delicate balance for them and many other countries – one by-product of a conflict many have ignored.

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But the international community is slowly waking up.

China, the US, and Thailand are reassessing their strategies. Whatever happens next, the future of Myanmar will probably remain splintered, with no one authority in charge.

And a splintered state will likely reap havoc on innocent civilians and continue to spill across national borders.

In his prison cell, drug lord Adolfo ‘Fito’ Macias lived like a king. Then one day, he vanished.

A state of emergency in Ecuador was declared after his escape from prison, and the government battled to regain control of the country’s jails from gangs.

President Daniel Noboa has vowed to eradicate violence and restore order, but three months on his forces have yet to recapture Macias, 44, the leader of the notorious Los Choneros gang.

Fito was serving a 34-year sentence for drug trafficking and murder. His escape in January occurred on the day he was scheduled to be moved from La Regional prison to a maximum security facility.

Despite being behind bars, he was able to continue to direct the activities of Los Choneros. He also enjoyed access to mobile phones and the internet, watched TV and kept pets.

“His prison cell basically resembled a hotel room,” says Annette Idler, a professor of global security at the University of Oxford. “He had access to women who were brought to him,” she adds. “It was a luxury room for him.”

Colourful murals of the gang leader were even daubed across the walls, including one of him flanked by two assault rifles.

Music video glorification

Fito also managed to star in a professionally produced music video, parts of which were filmed inside his prison, exalting the drugs kingpin as “el jefe y patron” – the boss.

There has been no explanation from authorities about how a film crew was able to gain access to one of Ecuador’s most notorious criminals. Meanwhile, El Corrido del Leon – the Lion’s Ballad – has racked up nearly 900,000 views on YouTube.

“It was glorifying him as this good and honest guy – how does that happen?”, says John Murdy, a University of Chicago PhD student who has spent years researching Ecuador’s prisons. “Fito is unique.”

This was only possible, Prof Idler says, because of corruption in the Ecuadorian prison system, with prison guards severely outnumbered and under pressure.

The choice between silver and lead

“It’s something that resembles Pablo Escobar – the choice between silver and lead. Either they receive a bribe or they’re just shot.”

Those same words are emblazoned on the prison wall mural of Fito – ‘plata’ (silver) and ‘plomo’ (lead).

Prison guards faced with overcrowded jails and not enough support are vulnerable to this kind of pressure from the gangs, who can find out where their families live, and often end up on their payroll.

Unable to fully control their prisons, authorities resorted to sorting new inmates by their gang affiliation.

“In effect the Ecuadorian state is giving prison wings over to gangs, which means they are able to consolidate their power and have a base of operations,” Murdy says. They can then collect weapons like machine guns, machetes and bombs, he adds.

Los Choneros, led by Fito, is one of the gangs authorities hold responsible for a spike in violence that reached new highs last year with the assassination of the presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio.

When Fito escaped La Regional prison on 7 January – his second jailbreak – the news spread around the world.

Roberto Izurieta, press secretary for the president, said “most likely” there was a leak of information that led to Fito’s escape. He said the gang chief was tipped off “a matter of hours” before he disappeared.

Embarrassment for president

“It was a real egg-on-the-face moment for the new president,” says Murdy. “Somehow Fito learned about this very high level security intervention and was able to escape without a gunshot fired.”

But should it have come as such a shock? After all, he was not being held in a high security prison.

Prof Idler adds: “In a way it was not much of a surprise… because we know Fito had lots of control.”

Three months later, Fito is still at large.

“On the one hand, it’s surprising because Ecuador is working with the US and Colombia, who have good intelligence services – this should help in finding him.”

‘Endemic corruption’

But Prof Idler added that the “endemic corruption” in Ecuador means that it may be difficult to track him down.

“It’s not clear where he actually went,” she says. “Given that these criminal organisations operate across borders it’s also quite likely that he is very well protected through his network, not just inside Ecuador but also in the wider region.”

There was speculation that he might head to Argentina, where he had moved his wife and children. But they were deported back to Ecuador a couple of weeks after Fito’s escape.

Amid suspicion that he might instead seek to pass through Peru to reach Bolivia, the Peruvian government strengthened security along its border.

Prof Idler adds: “The authorities’ eyes are on him, but it’s definitely plausible that he’s still somewhere in the region hiding.”

It remains to be seen when, or if, Fito will be hunted down. And even if he’s recaptured and put back in prison, what then? Fito has already escaped prison twice, could he do it again?