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Seventeen Escape From Seized
Thai Hospital
05:33 a.m. Jan 24, 2000 Eastern RATCHABURI, Thailand (Reuters) - Seventeen hostages escaped from a Thai provincial hospital seized Monday by gunmen from a Myanmar guerrilla faction, police at the scene said. The 17 fled through a back door of Ratchaburi hospital in western Thailand while the gunmen were releasing four other hostages. Earlier the gunmen had freed at least 19 hostages, witnesses said. Among the four released by the gunmen, believed to be from a splinter Karen guerrilla faction called ``God's Army'' led by two 12-year-old twins, were a five-year-old boy and a pregnant woman. ``Our talks with the gunmen are progressing positively for the moment,'' said one Thai security source as the releases were made. Interior Minister Sanan Kachornprasart, directing talks with the gunmen, told reporters at Bangkok's Government House over 700 hostages were being held by the gunmen in the hospital compound. ``I do not expect the negotiations with the gunmen to be protracted,'' he said, responding to reporters asking when the seizure would be resolved. ``God's Army'' -- a small group that broke away from Myanmar's Karen National Union ethnic guerrillas -- have demanded Thailand stop shelling its jungle base at the Myanmar border, send doctors and nurses to treat their casualties and allow their fighters to cross into Thailand. |