BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand is trying to bring home 162 of its nationals trapped in Myanmar by a surge in clashes between junta troops and ethnic minority insurgents near the border with China, officials said.
The effort to rescue Thais from chaos in neighbouring Myanmar comes after at least 30 Thais, most of them farm workers, were killed during the Oct. 7 rampage by the Hamas militants in southern Israel. Sixteen Thais were wounded and 17 are among hostages taken by the Palestinian militants.
Heavy fighting erupted last week in northern Myanmar’s Shan State where an alliance of ethnic minority forces battling for self-determination launched a series of coordinated attacks on junta positions.
Myanmar’s ruling military says it has lost control of several towns on the border with China, including Chinshwehaw on the border with China’s Yunnan province.
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has told the embassy in Myanmar to work with authorities to get the Thais to safety, his office said on social media, adding that the Thais and other nationals were “stuck” because of the fighting.
“Right now, the embassy is discussing ways to help all Thais return home quickly,” the office said in a late Thursday post.
Myanmar has been in chaos since a military coup in February 2021 unseated a democratically elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Newly formed pro-democracy insurgent groups have in some areas teamed up with ethnic minority guerrillas who have been campaigning for decades for greater autonomy.
The latest fighting in Shan State has pushed thousands of refugees into China, and displaced thousands more internally, Myanmar media outlets reported.
A “three brotherhood alliance” of ethnic minority armies in Shan and Rakhine states, said it is seeking to defend their territory and civilians from attacks by the junta.
(Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um; writing by Poppy McPherson; editing by Robert Birsel)
