MAE SOT — Thai authorities closed a border-area school and tightened security along the frontier with Myanmar after days of fierce clashes across the border sent mortar rounds and stray bullets into Thai territory, officials said Monday.
Major Gen. Maitri Chupricha, commander of the Naresuan Force, ordered all informal border crossings in Tak province shut and suspended the use of local piers amid escalating fighting in Myanmar’s Myawaddy Township. The move came after five mortar rounds of unknown origin landed in Thailand over the weekend, damaging a house and injuring a Myanmar boy, who is being treated at Mae Sot Hospital.
From late Sunday into early Monday, Thai security agencies received reports that large numbers of Myanmar junta troops armed with heavy weapons had pushed toward anti-regime positions near the Pasak base at the entrance to Min Lapar village in Myawaddy, directly opposite Mae Kon Ken village in Mae Sot district. The fighting sent shrapnel and stray gunfire into the Thai village, damaging six homes but causing no injuries.
Ban Mae Kon Ken School, situated only a few hundred meters from the border, suspended classes indefinitely after stray bullets were found inside the grounds last week. Principal Lt. Thawatchai Saengplaeng ordered the closure as a precaution.
Across the border, Myanmar government forces attempting to advance on an opposition stronghold came under heavy machine-gun fire and grenade attacks, prompting troops to respond with mortar fire. Flames and thick red smoke were visible from the Thai side as explosions echoed across Mae Sot.
Some unexploded ordnance and additional stray mortar rounds landed in Mae Kon Ken village, prompting the Naresuan Task Force to fire four illumination rounds from 120 mm mortars as a warning signal to Myanmar forces that heavy munitions had struck Thai soil.
Thai security units — including the Naresuan Task Force, the 35th Ranger Task Force, district officials, Border Patrol Police Company 346, and Mae Sot police — have since strengthened positions along the frontier and are maintaining round-the-clock patrols.
__________