Fierce fighting between the Myanmar military and armed ethnic rebels has forced about 5,000 people to flee across the country's border into Thailand this week, officials and media said on Thursday.
Myanmar's military government, which overthrew an elected government in a 2021 coup, is grappling with armed insurgencies in large areas of the country and has faced global condemnation for its lethal crackdown on dissent and pro-democracy movements. Fighting has raged in many rural areas across Myanmar, and rights groups accuse the military of targeting civilians in air strikes and ground operations. Last week, at least eight civilians, including children, were killed in an air strike on a village in northwest Myanmar.
About 5,000 people, many of them women and children, had crossed into Thailand's Tak province, and taken refuge in temporary shelters set up by local residents, according to Thai officials and an aid worker. "Many people crossed the border since yesterday and some are still also waiting on the Myanmar side to cross. People don't have enough drinking water or any toilets for now," a charity worker, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
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