Thailand asks Myanmar’s junta to reduce violence amid border clash

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Thailand’s foreign ministry has asked Myanmar’s junta to bring down violence in the country where an armed resistance from ethnic minority and pro-democracy forces has picked pace.

Fighting appears to have picked up after guerrillas from the Karen ethnic minority on Thursday said they have captured the last of the army’s outposts in Myawaddy township in eastern Myanmar.

Minority groups have been fighting back in the army’s war against resistance forces in Myanmar since last October. The offensive is being led by an alliance of ethnic rebel groups in the country’s northeast. Capturing of Myawaddy township allows the group to take over the town of Myawaddy, a major crossing point for trade with Thailand.

In a statement shared on Facebook, the Karen National Union, the ethnic group’s leading political body, said its armed wing, acting together with the affiliated Karen National Defense Organisation and allied pro-democracy forces, had captured the garrison of the army’s Infantry Battalion 275, about 4km (3m) to the west of the town before dawn on Thursday.

Fighting had engulfed the region since the start of this week.

Thai foreign affairs minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara said Thailand was working with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to follow a stalled peace plan for Myanmar.

“Thailand wants to see peace and dialogue,” Mr Parnpree told reporters after visiting Mae Sot, which lies across the Myanmar town of Myawaddy that was wrested out of military control by anti-junta forces led by the Karen National Union (KNU) rebel group.

Thailand is considering alternative trade routes in case of road closures caused by the fighting, the minister added.

Additionally, preparations are being made for an influx of people who can flee from Myanmar and into Thailand after the collapse of a border town to rebels.

On Friday, dozens of people lined up at a border crossing to flee Myanmar as they feared air strikes in reprisal from the army.

“I am afraid of air strikes,” said Moe Moe Thet San, a Myawaddy resident who stood in snaking queues of dozens of people in the heat to cross into Thailand. The 39-year-old woman was waiting with her five-year-old son to cross the border.

“They caused very loud noises that shook my house,” she said, adding that the loud sound of bombs drove them to leave home, fearing for their safety.

“That’s why I escaped here. They can’t bomb Thailand,” she added.

Analysts have said the loss of the town is a huge setback for Myanmar’s army and its military control over the nation, as they are already grappling with an economy in free fall, and will now face the loss of vital earnings from border trade while strengthening rebel groups.

Myanmar has been grappling with a nationwide armed conflict since February 2021 after the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and suppressed widespread nonviolent protests that sought a return to democratic rule.

Thousands of young people fled to jungles and mountains in remote border areas as a result of the military’s suppression and made common cause with ethnic guerrilla forces battle-hardened by decades of combat with the army in pursuit of autonomy.

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