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Thai Commandos, Hospital Attackers in Gun
Battle
06:54 p.m Jan 24, 2000 Eastern By Sutin Wannabovorn RATCHABURI, Thailand (Reuters) - Dozens of Thai commandos early Tuesday stormed a western provincial hospital and fought a fierce gun battle with a group of Myanmar Karen guerrillas holed up in the complex with hundreds of hostages. Witnesses said at least 20 explosions rocked the compound as six truckloads of commandos rushed into the Ratchaburi hospital where the attackers -- from a guerrilla band led by 12-year-old twins -- had held up to 700 medical staff and patients hostage since Monday morning. Commandos searched the building and the compound for the gunmen as an army helicopter circled overhead using spotlights to search for any escapees, witnesses added. This correspondent heard hundreds of machine gun shots fired in the past 30 minutes and at least 20 explosions inside the compound. This was followed by sporadic firing. There was no immediate word from police on the situation. SCREAMS FROM HOSTAGES, REPORT WITNESSES No hostages were seen coming out of the hospital. Some witnesses said they heard loud screams of some hostages from a distance. It appeared some of the attackers may have escaped and the commandos were searching for them with spotlights from a helicopter circling above lighting up the hospital area. Another witness near the compound told Thai radio that he saw several ambulances speeding toward the back gate of the hospital compound. The gunmen, from ``God's Army,'' a Karen guerrilla faction led by 12-year-old twins, had freed over 70 hostages, most of them sick, elderly, women and children from about 700 said by the authorities to be trapped in the hospital. Seventeen other hostages escaped from the compound by a back door Monday. The hospital attackers from ``God's Army,'' a breakaway faction of Myanmar's Christian Karen National Union guerrillas, seized the hospital and hostages to demand relief from bloody border fighting that had hit their jungle base at the Myanmar border. God's Army is about 100-strong and includes Myanmar students and child soldiers. It was not known if the twin leaders -- Johnny and Luther Htoo -- took part in the attack. Witnesses said about 10 guerrillas fired repeatedly with automatic weapons after breaking into the 770-bed provincial hospital at Ratchaburi, 120 km (75 miles) west of Bangkok in a hijacked school bus Monday. Thai radio said a teacher from a nearby school was wounded by a stray bullet when the guerrillas moved in on the hospital Monday. There were no other reports of casualties. After talks with the guerrillas, Thailand agreed to stop shelling the God's Army base and let unarmed fighters cross from Myanmar into Thailand for medical treatment. But the authorities refused demands to fly the guerrillas to the Myanmar border in helicopters. Thai First Army Region Commander, Taweep Suwannasingh told reporters at the scene early on Tuesday: ``They asked us (for helicopter rides home)... it meant they wanted to go home now,'' he said. ``But we can't send them to the Myanmar border. They can go by themselves from the Thai side.'' |