Thailand Army Forcing Back Myanmar Refugees

Thailand Army Forcing Back Myanmar Refugees Fleeing Air Strikes

Some 2,000 refugees fleeing Myanmar to Thailand had been turned away despite the ongoing aerial bombardment, two groups of activists said on Monday, but Thai authorities said the army was guarding them at the border.

The video showed villagers loading their belongings onto boats under the surveillance of Thai officials. Authorities prevented Reuters reporters from accessing the area.

Thousands fled Myanmar over the weekend after warplanes attacked villages near the border held by an armed ethnic group that had attacked a military post in the wake of a February attack.

1 coup by the Myanmar army. “There are still fighter jets over the area,” Mark Farmaner, head of the UK Burma Campaign, told Reuters. “Thailand’s ruthless and illegal act must end now,” Sunai Phasuk, Thailand’s senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, wrote on Twitter.

Thichai Jindaluang, governor of the Thai province of Mae Hong Son, told reporters that the refugees would not be turned away.

They were in a safe place on the edge of the border in Mae Sariang and Sop Moei districts, state media reported.

A Thai provincial official from Mae Hong Son, who declined to be named, said the group was “on Thai territory along the Salween River, but they have gone no further. It is under the direction of the army. ”

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said on Monday that the government was prepared to accept refugees and rejected claims that Thailand was supporting the Myanmar junta, telling reporters that “there is probably no one who supports the use of violence against people “.

Myanmar’s security forces have killed at least 459 people since the coup as they seek to crush mass protests, according to the Political Prisoner Assistance Association.

Hundreds of people, including politicians from the former civilian government, have fled central areas and taken refuge in territories controlled by armed ethnic groups.

Myanmar’s military has for decades justified its grip on power by saying that it is the only institution capable of preserving national unity.

He took power on February 1 saying that the November elections won by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s party were fraudulent, a claim dismissed by the electoral commission.