BANGKOK: A group of Myanmar soldiers fled across the Thai border on Friday (Mar 14) 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 organisations 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 3am (4.30am, Singapore time), according to a spokesman for the organisation’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 spokesman for the Myanmar junta could not be reached for comment.
