Thailand is prepared to accept 100,000 people fleeing Myanmar, Bangkok’s foreign minister said Tuesday, as fighting near a crucial border town rumbled on.
\nIn recent months, Myanmar’s army has faced its worst threat yet as fighting from anti-junta groups engulfs previously peaceful areas of the country.
\n\u201cWe have prepared for a while and we can accommodate about 100,000 people in Thailand’s safe area temporarily,\u201d Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara said.
\nThailand is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention, and does not distinguish between refugees and other migrants.
\nOver the weekend there were local reports of intense clashes near Myawaddy town, across the border from the Thai town of Mae Sot.
\nPeriodic surges in fighting along the long Thai-Myanmar border sees scores of people temporarily flee to the kingdom, before returning.
\nWhile there was no \u201cmass evacuation\u201d, people were coming over the border, he told reporters.
\nHowever, Parnpree emphasized the Thai-Myanmar border remained open, and that trade was still flowing through Mae Sot and into Myawaddy.
\n\u201cNo fighting, trade is still on, although it is decreasing,\u201d he said, saying trade had dropped by some 30 percent in the last year.
\nMyawaddy is Myanmar’s third busiest land crossing, according to the junta’s commerce ministry, with some $1.1 billion in goods passing through over the last 12 months.
\nEarlier on Tuesday Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin and high-level Thai officials met to discuss the border issue.
\n\u201cThe prime minister is concerned if the situation gets worse,\u201d Parnpree said.
\nIt follows the Thai government saying on Monday it had granted a request from the junta to land three \u201cspecial\u201d flights in the kingdom to repatriate people.
\nHowever, since the 1980s the kingdom has permitted tens of thousands fleeing Myanmar to stay in informal settlements near the border.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thailand is prepared to accept 100,000 people fleeing Myanmar, Bangkok’s foreign minister said Tuesday, as fighting near a crucial border town rumbled on. In recent months, Myanmar’s army has faced its worst threat yet as fighting from anti-junta groups engulfs previously peaceful areas of the country. \u201cWe have prepared for a while and we can …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18283,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18278\/revisions\/18283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}