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One dead in clash in Karen refugee



Subject: One dead in clash in Karen refugee camp on Thai border

Burma-Karen : One dead in clash in Karen refugee camp on Thai border

BANGKOK, April 27 (AFP) - One man died in a clash between Thai civilian 
militia and ethnic Karen fighters at a Karen refugee camp inside Thailand on 
Sunday, a Thai military officer said.

A group of 15 to 20 armed men crossed from Burma and invaded the Ta Per Poo 
camp, in Thailand's northern Tak province, and torched 19 shop stalls and 
houses early Sunday, Colonel Suwit Maenmuen, commander of the Fourth Army 
Regiment Task Force, told AFP.

Thai civilian militia fought with the armed group, killing one of the Karen 
fighters who had invaded the camp, located about two kilometres (one mile) 
inside Thailand.

The Karens, who were believed to be from the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army 
(DKBA), took eight refugees hostage but they were released later Sunday, Suwit 
said.

The DKBA is a Karen splinter group supported by the Burmese military. Most of 
the refugees in Thai border camps are sympathethic to the Karen National Union 
(KNU), which is still fighting Rangoon.

The Ta Per Poo camp houses some 2,200 ethnic Karen refugees who have fled 
Karen enclaves in eastern Burma during military offensives by Burmese 
government forces in recent years. Over 90,000 Karens stay in camps along the 
Thai border.

The KNU has lost control of its remaining territories in Burma in a major 
offensive by government forces which began in February, causing an exodus of 
thousands of Karens.