Myanmar troops flee from attacking rebels
Several soldiers were killed and some crossed the border into Thailand.
Several soldiers were killed and some crossed the border into Thailand.
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — A group of Myanmar soldiers fled across the Thai border on Friday after an assault by an ethnic armed group ousted them from their base, Thailand’s military said.
Myanmar has been riven by civil war after the military seized power in a 2021 coup, with the junta fighting an array of armed ethnic organizations and pro-democracy partisans.
Fighters from the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) attacked the Pulu Tu frontier military base in the early hours of Friday, the Thai military said.
“The Myanmar military defended the base but ultimately the KNLA successfully seized control,” it said in a statement.
“Several Myanmar soldiers were killed and some fled across the border into Thailand.”
The statement did not specify how many Myanmar soldiers had crossed the border into Thailand’s Tak province but said they had been “provided humanitarian assistance.”
KNLA forces seized the base around 3 a.m., according to a spokesperson for the organization’s political wing, the Karen National Union.
The KNLA fighters took the base after Myanmar troops “abandoned their guns and ran into Thailand,” it said.
A spokesperson for the Myanmar junta could not be reached for comment.
The Pulu Tu base is around 80 kilometers north of the border town of Myawaddy, a vital trade node that became a battleground between anti-junta fighters and the military last year.
The region is also the epicenter of the scam-center boom in Myanmar, where thousands of foreign nationals trawl the internet for victims to trick with romance or investment schemes.
Many workers say they were trafficked into the centers and thousands have been repatriated through Thailand in recent weeks under mounting international pressure.
The KNLA has been fighting for decades to establish greater autonomy for the Karen people living along Myanmar’s southeastern flank.
It is among dozens of ethnic armed organizations, already active before the coup, which have proved the most effective fighting forces against the junta.
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