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Patients
take cover on floor in Thai hospital
01:34 a.m. Jan 24, 2000 Eastern RATCHABURI, Thailand, Jan 24 (Reuters) - A nurse trapped in a Thai provincial hospital taken over by armed guerrillas from Myanmar on Monday said she had locked her ward to keep out the gunmen and told patients to lie on the floor for safety. Some of her colleagues had changed out of their uniforms to hide their identity. The nurse, who was not identified, told a local television station she had seen about five masked gunmen, dressed in military fatigues and armed with rifles. She said they all carried satchels, but she did not know what was in them. ``It's very tense. Most of the attackers are in general and emergency wards. We have the patients lying down on the floor so they can't be seen and locked the door. I saw them walk by. They tried to come in but couldn't.'' Thai officials said the attackers were from an ethnic Karen guerrilla splinter group dubbed ``God's Army,'' which is run by two 12-year-old twins, and were holding about 500 people hostage. Interior Minister Sanan Kachornprasart said the attackers had demanded doctors and nurses to treat guerrillas wounded in Myanmar government attacks on their base just across the border in Myanmar and to be allowed to move freely at the frontier. The nurse said the attackers fired four or five shots outside the door of the ward then moved on to another. She said some of the nurses had changed out of their uniforms after hearing the attackers were looking for doctors and nurses to treat casualties from border clashes with the Myanmar army. ``We can't understand them,'' she said. ``They are speaking Karen and some kind of Thai I can't understand.'' She said she had no idea how many people were being held by the attackers, who police said were controlling the emergency ward of the hospital at Ratchaburi, about 120 km west (75 miles) of Bangkok. A terrified hospital employee trapped in her car inside the compound called a television station to ask for help. ``I'm here with my husband,'' she said. ``If we get out of the car they'll see us -- they fired so many shots before the police got here.'' A doctor from the hospital who was not caught in the siege said it had 770 beds, which were 75-80 percent occupied. She said there were about 40 patients in intensive care. The nurse said there would have been at least one of the hospital's 70 doctors on duty overnight. ``I don't know how many of the others had arrived.'' She said she the nurses in her ward were still able to look after their patients. She said there was plenty of food in the hospital and added that the attackers had taken one pot of rice for themselves. The nurse said the land telephone line in the hospital had been cut and she was using a mobile telephone. |